-Sfe  PA  R,  I S  e/^ 
THE  NOVELISTS 


ARTHUR  BARTLETT  MAURICE 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


The  fifteenth-century  church  of  Saint-Medard.  It  was  here  that,  in 
Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables,"  Jean  Valjean,  with  Cosette,  recognized  in 
the  sidewalk  beggar  his  relentless  pursuer,  Javert,  and  began  his  epic  flight, 
which  ended  in  the  Convent  of  the  Little  Picpus. 


THE   PARIS    OF 
THE  NOVELISTS 


BY 

ARTHUR  BARTLETT  MAURICE 

Author  of  "The  New  York  of  the  Novelists," 

"Fifth  Avenue"  "Bottled  Up 

In  Belgium"  etc. 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BT 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGB  &  COMPANT 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDINQ  THAT  OF 

TRANSLATION  INTO  rOREIGN  LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDINQ  THB  SCANDINAVIAN 


PART  I 

PAGE 

I.  THE  TRANSATLANTIC  JOURNEY  IN 
FICTION 3 

The  Point  of  Departure — ^The  Transatlantic 
Trip  in  Fiction — The  Smoking  Room  in 
**  Captains  Courageous" — "Their  Silver 
Wedding  Journey" — Tales  of  Romance  and 
Intrigue — ^The  Suggestion  of  the  Horizon — 
Mc Andrew's  Point  of  View — Gateways  of 
Approach — The  English  Countryside — ^Along 
the  Southerly  Route — ^The  Road  Through 
the  Lowlands — ^The  Pilgrim's  Personal  Mem- 
ories. 

II.  THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO      .     .      13 
The  Astonishing  Hugo — ^The  Publication  of 
"Les    Miserables" — ^The    Rue    de    Clichy, 
Hugo's  First  Paris  Home — Associations  of 

the  Southern  Bank — Hugo's  Marriage — 
"  Hemani "— "  Han  d'Islande  "— "  Bug-Jar- 
gal"— The  Writing  of  "Notre  Dame"— The 
Place  des  Vosges  Residence — -The  Trail  of 
Esmeralda — ^The  Source  of  " Les  Miserables '* 
— ^The  Flight  of  Jean  Valjean  and  the  Pursuit 
of  Javert. 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

III.    THE  PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND 

DICKENS 28 

"The  Ballad  of  the  Bouillabaisse" — Terre's 
Tavern — "A  Caution  to  Travellers  " — Thack- 
eray as  Art  Student  and  Correspondent — 
The  Early  Married  Life — Mrs.  Brookfield — 
The  Paris  of  "Vanity  Fair,"  "The  New- 
comes,""»and  "The  Adventures  of  Phihp" — 
The  Paris  of  Dickens's  "ATale  of  Two  Cities'* 
— Dickens's  Days  in  Paris. 

IV.'  THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  MUSKETEERS 

AND  OTHERS 45 

The  Personal  Alexandre  Dumas — ^The 
"Novel  Manufactury" — From  Villers-Cot- 
terets  to  Paris — Early  Paris  Homes — ^The 
Chateau  of  Monte  Cristo — Dumas's  Death  at 
Dieppe — ^The  City  of  the  Valois — The  Streets 
of  the  Musketeers. 

V.  THE  PARIS  OF  HONORfi  DE  BALZAC  .  60 
The  Paris  of  Opening  Paragraphs — ^The  Rue 
Lesdiguieres — The  Happily  Forgotten  Novels 
— Balzac  as  Law  Student  and  Publisher — In 
the  Rue  Visconti — The  Secret  of  Achievement 
— The  "Hotel  des  Haricots" — ^The  Hidden 
Chambers — "Les  Jardies" — The  "Maison 
Vauquer" — ^The  Faubourg  Saint-Germain 
— ^The  Rue  du  Doyenne — ^The  Haunts  of 
Cesar  Birotteau, 


CONTENTS  vii 

PAGE 

Vr.    SINISTER  STREETS 76 

Slums  of  Paris — ^Ancient  Streets — The  Old 
Cite  of  "Les  Mysteres  de  Paris" — The  Per- 
sonal Eugene  Sue — "Les  Mysteres,"  and 
"Le  Juif  Errant"  as  Serials — The  Under- 
world of  1840 — Caverns  in  the  Cours  la 
Reine — Paul  de  Kock — His  Amazing  Popu- 
larity— The  Tribute  of  Major  Pendennis — 
The  Paris  of  Emile  Gaboriau. 

VII.  ABOUT    PARIS    WITH    ALPHONSE 
DAUDET 92 

The  Rue  MoufFetard — Daudet's  First  Im- 
pressions of  Paris — In  the  Latin  Quarter 
and  the  Marais — Scenes  of  "Sapho" — "Les 
Rois  en  Exil" — The  Genesis  of  the  Story — 
The  Rue  Monsieur  le  Prince — In  the  Paris 
Ghetto — Originals  of  the  Daudet  Charac- 
ters. 

VIII.  BOHEMIAN    TRAILS 107 

The  Migration  of  Bohemia — **La  Vie  de 
Boheme"    and    "Trilby" — Henry    Murger 

and  his  Contemporaries — ^Youth  and-Age — ^A 
Bohemian's  Expense  Book  of  the  Forties — 
"Trilby" — ^The  Studio  in  the  Place  St.  Ana- 
tole  des  Arts — Du  Maurier  and  Henry  James 
— Du  Maurier  in  Paris  and  Antwerp — Trails 
of  the  "Musketeers  of  the  Brush" — Origi- 
nals of  the  Characters. 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

IX.  SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN    124 
The  Lesson  of  Laurence  Sterne — ^The  France^ 

of  Kipling's  "The  Light  That  Failed"— The 
Trail  of  Stevenson — "R.  L.  S."  in  Paris, 
Fontainebleau,  and  Grez — Conan  Doyle's 
Sherlock  Holmes  and  Brigadier  Gerard — 
"The  Refugees" — Leonard  Merrick's  Tri- 
cotrin  and  His  Haunts — ^The  Paris  of  Arnold 
Bennett — ^The  Writing  of  "The  Old  Wives 
Tale"— W.  J.  Locke's  "The  Beloved  Vaga- 
bond" and  "Septimus" — Mr.  Locke  on  His 
Own  Characters. 

X.  ZOLA'S  PARIS 146 

\The   Bitter  Years  of  Apprenticeship — ^The 

World  Seen  from  a  Garret — Employment 
at  Hachette's — First  Published  Books — ^At 
Flaubert's  Table — ^The  Story  of  the  House 
at  Med  an — Paris  Streets  and  the  Novels  of 
the  "Rougon-Macquart" — Dram  Shops, 
Markets,  and  Department  Stores. 

XI.  THE  PARIS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT    163 
The  Real  Bel-Ami — ^The  Key  to  the  Charac- 
ters— Maupassant's  Heritage  and  Training — 
The  Years  of  Achievement — The  Day's  Work 

— ^The  Valet,  Fran9ois — ^The  Gathering  Shad- 
ows— ^The  Downfall. 

XII.  THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS  .     177 
Irving  and   Cooper — Poe's   "The  Mystery 


CONTENTS  ix 

of  Marie  Koget,"  "The  Purloined  Letter," 
and  "The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue" — ^A 
Digression — Paris  in  the  Books  of  Archibald 
Clavering  Gunter,  Marion  Crawford  and  W. 
D.  Howells,  Mark  Twain,  Henry  James, 
Edith  Wharton,  Richard  Harding  Davis, 
Owen  Johnson,  Louis  Joseph  Vance,  F. 
Berkeley  Smith,  Cleveland  Moffett,  Guy 
Wetmore  Carryll — H.  L.  Wilson's  "Ruggles 
of  Red  Gap" — Booth  Tarkington's  "The 
Guest  of  Quesnay,"  "The  Beautiful  Lady," 
and  "His  Own  People" — Frank  Norris  in 
Paris — ^An  O.  Henry  Paris  Trail. 


PART  II 
ABOUT  RURAL  FRANCE 

PAGE 

XIII.  THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  SEINE  .     .     .     197 
Between  Paris  Quais — ^The  Parisian  Afield — 
The  Musketeers  in  the  Environs — ^The  River 

and  Guy  de  Maupassant — Meudon  and 
**Trilby"— The  Trail  of  "Peter  Ibbetson"— 
"Samuel  Brohl  et  Cie" — Versailles — The 
Forest  of  Fontainebleau — Daudet*s  "Sapho" — 
Ville  d'Avray,  Chaville,  and  the  Lake  at  En- 
ghien. 

XIV.  CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  ...  209 
The  Romance  of  Old  Names — Calais  and 
Thackeray's  "Desseins" — Boulogne  and 
"The  Newcomes" — Conan  Doyle*s  "Uncle 
Bernac" — Fecamp,  Etretat,  and  Guy  de 
Maupassant — The  Real  Maison  Tellier — 
Havre,  "Pierre  et  Jean,"  and  Henry  James's 
"Four  Meetings" — Maupassant's  Literary 
Creed — Balzac's  " Modeste  Mignon  " — Sands 

of  Trouville — Ouida's  "Moths" — Tarking- 
ton's  "The  Guest  of  Quesnay" — ^The  Kings 
of  Yvetot — Mont  Saint-Michel — Rouen  and 


CONTENTS  xi 


PAGE 


"Madame  Bovary"— The  Real  Y.—The 
Style  of  Gustave  Flaubert — "  Bel-Ami,"  and 
"  Boule-de-Suif"— Merrick's  "Conrad  in 
Quest  of  His  Youth." 

XV.  A  ROUNDABOUT  CHAPTER    .     .  •  .'   227 
Carcassonne — The  Land  of  the  Fading  Twi-  , 
light — "Mademoiselle  de    Maupin" — "Ma- 

non  Lescaut" — With  Balzac  in  Touraine — 
The  Home  of  Eugenie  Grandet — The  Coun- 
try of  Scott's  "Quentin  Durward" — About 
France  with  the  Comedie  Humaine — Con- 
carneau,  and  Blanche  Willis  Howard's 
"  Guenn  "—Pierre  Loti's  "  Pecheur  d'Islande  " 
— Belle-Isle-en-Mer  and  the  Death  of  Por- 
thos — Indret,  and  Daudet's  "Jack." 

XVI.  A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  TARTARIN  .     '.     241 
The  Rails  of  the  P.  L.  M.— At  the  "Emper- 
eurs"— Streets   of  Tarascon— The    Baobab 
Villa — ^The  Castle  of  King  Rene — The  Bridge 

to  Beaucaire — The  Writing  of  "Tartarin  de 
Tarascon." 

XVII.  MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS     .     .    252 
Villemessant     and     Dante's     Escape — ^The 
Magic  of  Marseilles — Conrad's  "The  Arrow 

of  Gold"— Dickens's  "Little  Dorrit"— Dau- 
det's "Tartarin"  and  "Sapho"— R.  H.  Davis 
and  Marseilles — ^The  Shadow  of  "Monte 
Cristo" — ^The  Cannebiere  and  the  Catalans 


xii  CONTENTS 

'  PAGE 

Quarter — ^The  Chateau  dTf  and  Its  Story — 
The  Island  of  Monte  Cristo — The  Real  Ed- 
mond  Dantes — Maquet's  Share  in  Writing 
"Monte  Cristo" — ^Zola  in  Marseilles — ^Along 
the  Riviera — De  Maupassant  and  Cannes. 

XVIII.  WHERE   THE   WALL   OF   STEEL 
HELD 266 

In  Flanders  Field — ^The  Heritage  of  Disaster 
— ^The  Fiction  of  the  Young  Republic — ^The 
Napoleonic  Era — The  War  of  1870 — ^A  Stev- 
ensonian  Prophecy — ^The  Great  Conflict. 

XIX.  THE  OLD-WORLD  OPEN  ROAD   .     .     273 
The  Trail  of  the  Musketeers — ^The  Journey 

to  England — Seventeenth-century  Inn 
Names — Crossing  the  Channel — Old-World 
Hostelries — ^Wine  and  Water — Proverbs  for 
Travellers — ^The  Cost  of  Travel. 

XX.  MY  OLD  EUROPE 281 

INDEX .295 


FULL  PAGE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Fifteenth-century  Church  of  St.  Medard 

Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

Old  Paris  from  Notre  Dame 22 

The  Old  Pont  Neuf 72 

Paris  Was  Born  in  the  Isle  of  the  Seine  ....  88 

The  Morgue 120 

The  Rue  du  Haut  Pave,  Looking  Toward  the 

Pantheon 136 

"Most  of  the  Streets  Were  very  Narrow  and  Had 

no  Sidewalks" 202 

The  Vieux  Port  of  Marseilles 254 

ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT 

FAGS 

The  Passage  des  Patriarches.  A  Bit  of  Old  Paris 
Skirted  by  Jean  Valjean  and  Cosette  in  the 
Flight  from  Javert.  Victor  Hugo's  "Les 
Miserables" 26 

The  Rue  St.  Dominique  of  the  Old  Faubourg  St. 
Germain.  In  This  Street  Was  the  Hotel 
dc  Florae  of  Thackeray's  "The  Newcomes"      37 

Courtyard  of  the  Conciergerie.  Whence  Sidney 
Carton  Went  to  Execution.  Dickens's  "A 
Tale  of  Two  Cities  " 42 

Meung.    Where  D'Artagnan  First  Came  upon 

ziii 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

the  Scene  of  Fiction.     Dumas's  *'The  Three 
Musketeers" 48 

D'Artagnan's  Lodging  in  the  Rue  Tiquetonne. 

Dumas's  "Twenty  Years  After"  ....       58 

The   Rue  Visconti.     Where   Honore  de   Balzac 
Estabhshed  the  Printing  Press  That  Ruined 
Him 63 

The  Maison  Vauquer.  Where  Pere  Goriot  Lived 
and  Died,  and  Trompe-la-Mort  Plotted. 
The  Rue  Neuve  Sainte-Genevieve  Is  Now  the 
Rue  Tournefort.     Balzac's  "Pere  Goriot"   .       68 

A    Sinister    Street    of  Old    Paris.     Sue's    "The 

Mysteries  of  Paris" 76 

The  Rue  de  Venise.  A  Quaint,  Old  World  Pas- 
sage Still  to  Be  Found  Near  the  Halles 
Centrales 78 

The  Old  Temple  Market.  Sue's  "The  Mys- 
teries of  Paris" 84 

The  Old  Mont  Sainte-Genevieve.  Crested  by 
the  Church  That  Links  the  Present  and  the 
Romantic  Past 92 

A  Montmartre  Street  of  R.  L.  Stevenson's  "New 
Arabian  Nights,"  and  Leonard  Merrick's 
"Tricotrin  Stories" 128 

The  Old  Rue  St.  Martin.     Conan  Doyle's  "The 

Refugees" 134 

The  Genealogical  Tree  of  Zola's  Rougon-Mac- 

quart  Family 155 

The  Cabaret  of  the  Assassins.  An  Outpost  of  the 
City  of  Naples  of  Montmartre.  Zola's 
"L'Argent" 156 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xv 

PACK 

Approaching  the  Basllique  du  Sacre-Coeur  .  .  157 
The  Pare  Monceau.   A  Favourite  Setting  of  Guy 

de  Maupassant 165 

A  Map  Indicating  the  Invasion  of  France  by 

Certain    EngHsh    and   American   Works   of 

Fiction 178 

The   Ancient    Norman    Mount    of   St.    Michel. 

Maupassant's  "Notre  Coeur" 209 

The    Seine    at    Rouen.     Flaubert's    "Madame 

Bovary" 220 

Ry,  the  "Y"  of  Flaubert's  "Madame  Bovary"      223 

The  Walls  of  Carcassonne 227 

The  Old  Auberge  du  Cheval  Blanc.    Abbe  Pre- 

vost's  "Manon  Lescaut" 229 

The  Chateau  de  Velors,  the  Home  of  Balzac's 

Eugenie  Grandet 233 

A  Map  Indicating  the  Rural  France  of  Balzac's 

"Comedie  Humaine" 237 

King  Rene's  Castle.     Where  the  "Montenegrin 

Prince  "  Was  a  Guest  of  the  State.     Daudet's 

"Tartarin  of  Tarascon" 241 

The  Rhone  Bridge  from  Tarascon  to  Beaucaire, 

Over  Which  Tartarin  Went  to  Exile.  Daudet's 

"Port  Tarascon" 248 

The  Chateau  d'lf,  from  Which  Edmond  Dantes 

Escaped  in  the  Shroud  of  the  Abbe  Faria. 

Dumas's  "The  Count  of  Monte  Cristo  .      .     252 


INTRODUCTION 

YESTERDAY  there  was  a  familiar  and  much- 
hackneyed  saying  to  the  effect  that  all  good 
Americans  go  to  Paris  when  they  die.  To-day 
it  does  not  come  so  readily  to  the  lips.  Somehow,  about 
it,  there  is  a  flippant,  even  a  jarring,  note.  Yesterday, 
for  most  of  us,  the  city  by  the  Seine  stood  for  the  light- 
ness and  the  gaiety  of  life,  for  the  glitter  of  spacious 
boulevards,  for  the  splendour  of  open  spaces,  for  the 
beauty  of  monuments.  The  "pleasant  land  of  France " 
as  a  whole  meant  the  plages  of  Trouville  or  Deauville, 
quaint  fishing  villages  of  Brittany,  largely  populated 
by  aspiring  painters  in  striking  raiment  who  spoke 
French  with  a  delicious,  mid-western  nasal  twang,  the 
chateaux  of  Touraine,  the  rich  vineyards  of  the  Cote  d^Or^ 
symbol  of  the  "imprisoned  laughter  of  the  peasant  girls 
of  France,"  the  semi-tropical  warmth  of  the  Riviera. 
It  is  to  a  different  Paris,  and  a  France  which  Paris  rep- 
resents, but  which  must  never  be  wholly  judged  by 
Paris,  that  the  eyes  of  millions  of  Americans  are  turned 
to-day. 

Above  all,  it  is  the  stones  of  France  that,  to  our  coun- 
trymen and  countrywomen,  are  taking  on  a  new  mean- 
ing. We  understand  better  now  the  stately  Pantheon 
that  crowns  the  Mont  de  Paris.  Aux  grands  hommes 
la  patrie  reconnaissante.    No  longer  will  the  great  ceme- 

zvii 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

taries  of  Montmartre  and  of  Pere  Lachaise  be  merely 
spectacles.  Too  close  to  our  hearts  are  thousands  of 
simple  mounds,  that,  peasant  tended,  stretch  from  the 
Flemish  lowlands  to  the  Vosges  mountains,  along  the 
line  where  the  Wall  of  Steel  held.  With  newly  awakened 
eyes  we  are  beholding  France's  mighty  past.  The 
centuries  that  are  gone  now  have  their  significance. 
Yesterday  Reims  was  a  city  unknown  in  the  United 
States  save  to  the  travelled  few.  To-day,  there  is 
hardly  a  village  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific 
that  does  not  thrill  to  the  name. 

It  was  the  writer's  privilege  to  be  in  the  French 
Senate  the  day  of  the  formal  announcement  of  the 
entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  World  War, 
and  later  to  witness  the  arrival  of  the  advance  guard 
of  that  vast  army  from  across  the  sea  that  was  to  be 
such  a  factor  in  the  turning  of  the  tide.  Subsequently, 
he  has  seen  the  new  spirit  reflected  in  scores  of  soldiers' 
letters.  That  spirit  has  been  one  to  put  to  shame  the 
old  frivolity,  the  old  inadequate  appreciation  or  even 
recognition  of  the  things  that  are  vital  and  that  endure. 
Face  to  face  with  the  Great  Adventure,  thousands  of 
those  boys  turned  to  the  stones  of  France  for  the  story 
and  interpretation  of  her  civilization,  her  history,  her 
literature,  and  her  art.  Their  footsteps  are  likely  to  be 
followed  by  the  tens  of  thousands  of  mothers  and  fethers 
and  sisters  who  will  make  the  pilgrimage  in  the  years 
to  come. 

It  is  an  unwieldy  past  that  formal  history,  at  best, 
presents.  The  essence,  the  colour,  the  romance  of  the 
world  that  is  gone  have  ever  been  best  interpreted  by 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

those  who  have  tempered  often  disputed  fact  by  the 
play  of  constructive  imagination.  It  is  Shakespeare's 
England  that  we  know,  and  not  the  England  of  the 
titled  statesmen  who  occasionally  condescended  to 
applaud  his  plays  in  the  old  Globe  Theatre  on  the  banks 
of  the  Thames.  It  is  with  the  eyes  of  Wilfred  of 
Ivanhoe,  of  Cedric,  of  Wamba  the  Jester,  that  we  see 
Sherwood  Forest,  and  the  antagonism  between  Norman 
and  Saxon  in  the  days  when  Prince  John  coveted  the 
throne  of  the  absent  Richard  of  the  Lion  Heart.  Which 
is  the  real  D'Artagnan:  the  shabby  adventurer  who 
actually  lived  and  wrote  a  book  of  sordid  memoirs, 
which  apparently  nobody  but  Thackeray  ever  read,  or 
the  man  that  Dumas  created  to  the  delight  of  millions, 
splendid  in  his  hot  youth,  finer  at  his  ripe  maturity, 
and  best  of  all  as  the  grizzled  veteran  who  kidnapped 
Monk  and  rode  to  Belle-Isle  ?  To  turn  to  our  own  land 
and  history.  Parkman  has  written  learnedly  and  enter- 
tainingly of  the  Indian  of  Colonial  days.  But  it  is 
through  the  pages  of  Fenimore  Cooper's  fancy  that  the 
figure  of  the  Redskin  has  become  a  heritage  of  Ameri- 
can youth.  Does  thunder  in  the  Catskill  Mountains 
suggest  some  petty  village  politician  of  the  Dutch 
burgher  days,  or  Rip  van  Winkle  going  to  his  twenty 
years*  sleep,  and  the  ghostly  gnome-like  men  of  Hendrik 
Hudson  at  their  game  of  bowls  ? 

To  illustrate  by  contrasting  the  figures  of  history 
and  fiction  of  more  modern  times.  In  a  London  street 
it  is  a  matter  of  little  or  no  interest  to  the  writer  that  a 
certain  house  was  once  the  home  of  the  last  Mayor  of 
Peterborough  before  the  passage  of  the  Reform  Bill. 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  interest  if  it  happens  to  be  the 
structure  where  Mrs.  Rawdon  Crawley  (nee  Miss  Re- 
becca Sharp)  Hved  on  "nothing  a  year.**  The  one 
dominant  impression  of  the  Charterhouse  will  ever  be 
of  Colonel  "Tom"  Newcome  answering  *'  Adsum'*  when 
his  name  was  called,  and  standing  in  the  presence  of  his 
master.  There  are  certain  men  and  women  of  fiction 
who  are  real  and  material,  whereas  those  who  actually 
had  a  brief  existence  on  this  earth  are  but  dust.  Their 
names  have  crept  into  our  daily  talk.  It  is  enough  to 
say:  "He  is  a  Pecksniff,"  or  "a  Tartuffe,"  or  "a  Dr. 
Jekyll   and   Mr.   Hyde." 

No  city  and  no  land  is  so  rich  in  literary  shrines  as 
are  the  city  and  land  with  which  this  volume  has  to  do. 
There  is  hardly  a  street  of  the  Paris  of  the  present,  or 
of  the  Paris  that  is  gone  but  which  still  lives,  that  is  not 
reflected  in  the  pages  of  the  imaginative  writers  of 
France.  Across  the  city  of  1830  lay  the  shadow  of 
Balzac.  That  memory  alone  is  enough  to  people  the 
houses  with  a  hundred  vivid  types.  The  greatest 
setting  of  the  scene  in  all  his  books,  the  Maison  Vauquer 
of  "Le  Pere  Goriot,"  is  still  to  be  found,  practically 
unchanged  since  the  day  when  "Trompe-la-mort" 
tempted  Rastignac  in  its  garden.  The  towers  of  Notre 
Dame  are  much  the  same  as  when  the  hunchback 
Quasimodo  looked  down  from  them  on  the  labyrinth 
of  streets  below.  The  Little  Picpus  was  the  refuge 
of  Jean  Valjean  after  his  flight  from  Javert.  Through 
the  Marais  one  may  track  the  people  of  Alphonse  Dau- 
det's  "Fromont  et  Risler."  A  vivid  fancy  will  serve 
to  identify  the  very  windows  of  the  study  of  Anatole 


INTRODUCTION  xxl 

France's  Sylvestre  Bonnard.  There  is  no  need  to  stir 
from  the  boulevards  to  find  the  men  and  women  who 
peopled  the  pages  of  Guy  de  Maupassant. 

This  book  has  been  in  mind  and  in  hand  for  many 
years.  The  writer  first  saw  France  as  a  boy  of  eight. 
He  was  there  many  times  in  the  course  of  the  impres- 
sionable teens.  It  was  when  he  was  in  the  early  twen- 
ties that  the  literary  associations  began  to  take  hold  of 
him,  when  he  first  found  a  delight  in  tramping  from 
street  to  street,  trying  to  reconstruct  Paris  as  it  was 
when  the  King's  Musketeers  crossed  swords  with  the 
Guards  of  the  Cardinal;  or  hunting  for  the  Cafe  Momus 
of  Murger's  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Boheme,"  or  the  studio 
of  TafFy,  the  Laird,  and  Little  Billee  of  Mr.  du  Mau- 
rier's  "Trilby."  In  later  visits  he  has  often  ignored  the 
Louvre,  but  there  has  always  been  found  time  for  re- 
newed intimacy  with  the  literary  trail.  Nor  has  it 
been  a  matter  of  Paris  alone.  Once,  for  example, 
enthusiasm  for  a  certain  delightful  creation  of  Daudet 
carried  him  to  Tarascon,  thence  to  the  wharves  of 
Marseilles,  and  thence,  by  a  French  tramp  steamer  on 
which  he  was  the  only  passenger,  across  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  Algeria  in  the  pursuit  of  his  beloved  Tartarin. 
To  the  regions  where  the  wall  of  steel  held  he  was 
close  in  the  terrible  days  when  the  guns  were  blazing 
death  and  the  grip  of  the  invader  on  the  land  had  not 
yet  been  broken.  The  uniforms  in  thousands  about  him 
were  of  the  Teuton  field  gray,  for  it  was  the  German  line 
that  he  was  behind,  his  business  there  being  as  one  of 
the  American  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium  and  the 
north  of  France.     It  was  the  one  time  when  the  literary 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

i< 

trail  was  little  in  mind.  But  in  the  years  to  come  it  is 
his  ardent  hope  to  see  often  again  the  Havre  jetecy  where 
Maupassant's  Pierre  and  Jean  sat  in  the  darkness;  the 
Chateau  dTf  of  the  bay  of  Marseilles  where  Edmond 
Dantes  beat  his  head  against  the  dungeon  wall;  the 
Esplanade  of  Tarascon,  where  Tartarin  told  of  his  lion 
hunts  and  his  ascent  of  the  Jungfrau;  and  to  wake  in 
the  morning  to  the  hum  of  Paris  going  to  work.  Then, 
in  the  spirit  in  which  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  called  to 
the  shade  of  his  adored  D'Artagnan:  he  will  say:  "Come 
once  more  with  Eugene  de  Rastignac  to  the  heights  of 
Pere  Lachaise,  and  the  challenge:  *A  nous  deux,  mainten- 
ant!*  **  That,  frankly,  is  the  spirit  of  the  narrative :  and  if 
this  book  is  of  aid  to  one  American  reader  in  finding  the 
trail  and  better  understanding  its  charm  it  will  not  have 
been  written  in  vain. 

Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice. 


PART  I 

CONCERNING  THE  TRANSATLANTIC 
JOURNEY 


I.  CONCERNING  THE  TRANSATLANTIC 
JOURNEY 

The Pointof  Departure — The  Transatlantic  TripinFictlon — The 
Smoking  Room  in  *' Captains  Courageous'^ — ''Their  Silver  Wed' 
ding  Journey" — Tales  of  Romance  and  Intrigue — The  Suggestion 
of  the  Horizon — McAndrew's  Point  of  View — Gateways  of  Ap~ 
proach — The  English  Countryside — Along  the  Southerly  Route — 
The  Road  through  the  Lowlands — The  Pilgrim's  Personal  Mem- 
ories. 

THERE  is  no  need  to  wait  until  the  liner  or  the 
channel  boat  or  the  landing  lighter  scrapes  the 
wharves  of  a  French  port,  or  the  train  stops 
for  the  custom-house  examination  at  the  French  frontier, 
in  order  to  greet  the  romance  of  fiction.  No  matter 
the  method  of  approach  selected,  romance,  if  one  has 
eyes  to  see  it,  lines  the  way.  From  the  very  moment 
of  embarkation,  when  the  clanging  bell  commands  im- 
periously the  separation  of  those  really  about  to  travel 
from  those  who,  with  mingled  emotions,  are  merely 
wishing  them  *'God  speed,"  fiction  offers  a  wide  choice 
of  motives,  ambitions,  and  companions.  Perhaps 
your  tastes  are  sedate  and  selfishly  masculine,  and  the 
most  enchanting  spot  on  shipboard  is  a  corner  of  the 
smoking  room.  In  that  case  there  is  no  better  book 
to  which  to  turn  than  Rudyard  Kipling's  "Captains 
Courageous,"  the  first  chapter  of  which  presents  the 

3 


4  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

finest  picture  of  a  transatlantic  liner  smoking  room  that 
has  ever  been  shown  in  fiction,  a  picture  containing  so 
many  vividly  illuminating  touches  in  so  brief  a  space 
that  one's  instinctive  and  admiring  comment  is  to  the 
effect  that  nobody  in  the  world  but  Kipling  could  have 
written   it. 

But  perhaps  the  point  of  view  from  which  one  re- 
gards life  and  European  travel  is  one  which  holds  too 
assiduous  patronage  of  the  smoking  room  and  its  grossly 
material  joys  in  stern  disfavour.  Then  there  is,  for 
example,  Mr.  Howells's  "Their  Silver  Wedding  Jour- 
ney." With  a  characteristic  love  of  detail  Mr.  Howells 
has  played  about  the  transatlantic  journey.  First 
there  was  the  trip  to  Hoboken  for  the  preliminary  visit 
to  the  Hanseatic  boat  the  Colmannia,  the  long  dis- 
cussions about  the  comparative  merits  of  that  vessel 
and  the  Norumbia,  the  weighing  of  problems  of 
baggage  and  equipment,  the  amassing  of  maps  and 
guide  books.  The  Marches  were  deliberate  and  well- 
ordered  people,  and  all  this  was  the  affair  of  a  month. 
Even  after  the  actual  embarkation,  one  hundred  pages 
or  more  were  needed  to  convey  them  without  serious 
mishap  or  exciting  incident  across  the  Atlantic,  al- 
though twenty-five  pages  sufficed  to  return  them  to 
America. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  atmosphere  of  mystery,  intrigue, 
deck-chair  courtship  that  is  desired.  Casually  one  may 
offer  the  conventional  novel  of  the  George  Barr  Mc- 
Cutcheon  type,  with  its  elusive  Princess  of  Graustark 
and  its  highly  endowed  though  undeniably  intrusive 
American  hero,  a  kind  of  tale  which  O.  Henry  has 


THE  TRANSATLANTIC  JOURNEY  5 

parodied  and  vindicated  in  "Best  Seller";  or  the  very 
charming  "Princess  Aline'*  of  Richard  Harding  Davis; 
or  the  "Dr.  Claudius"  of  F.  Marion  Crawford;  or  Fran- 
ces Hodgson  Burnett's  "The  Shuttle,"  which  told  of 
the  crossing  of  the  Meridania  and  the  adventures 
of  Betty  Vanderpoel  and  the  red-headed  second-class 
passenger;  or  a  novel  by  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson, 
"Lord  Loveland  Discovers  America,"  for  example; 
or  "The  False  Faces"  of  Louis  Joseph  Vance;  or  the 
extremely  amusing  "Uncle  Hyacinth"  of  Alfred  Noyes, 
albeit  the  ship  of  that  tale  sailed  from  a  South  American 
and  not  a  North  American  port;  or  "The  Destroyer" 
of  Burton  Egbert  Stevenson;  or,  to  turn  to  the  fiction 
of  the  past,  to  offer  Dickens's  "Martin  Chuzzlewit" 
with  its  somewhat  unflattering  portraits  of  our  country- 
men and  countrywomen,  or  "The  Virginians"  of 
Thackeray,  which  showed  in  what  manner  Harry  War- 
rington crossed  from  the  New  World  to  England  on  the 
Young  Rachel  in  the  year  of  grace  1756.  This  is, 
as  the  reader  has  already  perceived,  a  decidedly  ramb- 
ling chapter,  in  which  no  attempt  Is  made  at  discrimi- 
nating tabulation.  _  j/ ; 
In  the  course  of  the  transatlantic  passage  which  may 
be  a  matter  (the  Pilgrim  writes  from  personal  experience) 
of  anywhere  from  six  days  to  eighteen,  the  horizon  is 
dotted  from  time  to  time  with  craft  that  suggest  a 
fiction  of  the  sea  that  Is  even  more  Invigorating.  That 
ship,  lurching  strangely  In  the  now  placid  waters  of  the 
Channel,  may  be  the  Judea  of  Joseph  Conrad's 
*'Youth,'*  venturing  unsteadily  yet  resolutely  to  her 
death.     It  may  be  the  vessel  of  the  three  journalists 


6  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

of  Kipling's  "A  Matter  of  Fact,"  the  Rathmines 
from  Cape  Town,  that  has  witnessed  in  South  Atlantic 
waters  the  death  of  the  sea  serpent  and  the  agony  of 
its  mate,  *' blind,  white,  and  smelling  of  musk."  It 
may  be  a  boat  out  of  Gloucester  of  a  James  B.  Connolly 
story;  or  the  ship  of  William  McFee's  "Casuals  of  the 
Sea'*;  or  a  craft  of  the  nautical  romance  of  Frank  T. 
Bullen,  or  Cutcliffe  Hyne,  or  Morgan  Robertson,  or 
Albert  Sonnichsen,  or  even  Clark  Russell;  or  the 
haunted  ship  of  the  Marion  Crawford  ghost  story, 
"Man  Overboard";  or,  at  the  beginning  of  the  journey, 
the  incoming  Dimhula  ("The  Ship  That  Found  Herself), 
crying  "Oyez!  Oyez!  Oyez!  Princes,  Dukes,  and 
Barons  of  the  High  Seas";  or  if  the  white  cliffs  of 
Albion  be  very  close  at  hand,  a  little  vessel  hailing  from 
the  Wapping  Old  Stairs  of  the  yarns  of  W.  W.  Jacobs. 

But  after  all  there  is  really  little  need  to  follow  with 
screwed-up  eyes,  or  through  glasses  difficult  to  focus, 
smudges  of  smoke  on  the  skyline.  Romance  is  nearer 
at  hand  if  we  are  willing  to  accept  the  testimony  of 
McAndrews,  the  "dour  Scotch  engineer'*  of  the  poem. 

Romance!    Those  first-class  passengers  they  like  It  very  well, 
Printed  an'  bound  in  little  books;  but  why  don't  poets  tell? 
I'm  sick  of  all  their  quirks  an*  turns — the  loves  and  doves  they  dream — 
Lord,  send  a  man  like  Robbie  Bums  to  sing  the  Song  o'  Steam! 

Suppose  that  on  the  road  to  France  you  have  crossed 
the  Atlantic  by  a  line  that  makes  Plymouth  the  first 
port  of  call.  In  the  war-zone  years  it  would  have  been 
Falmouth,  incidentally  the  inspiration  of  the  line: 
"Every  prospect  pleases,  and  only  man  is  vile";  and 


THE  TRANSATLANTIC  JOURNEY  7 

there  would  have  been  long  hours  of  delay  in  a  dreadful 
wooden  shed  by  the  waterside,  and  rigid  scrutiny  by 
Scotland  Yard  and  the  military  authorities;  and  the 
vessel  by  which  you  had  travelled,  after  a  period  of  wise 
detention,  would  have  made  its  way,  by  a  circuitous 
journey  consuming  six  or  seven  days,  west  of  Ireland 
and  north  of  the  Orkneys  to  its  home  port  of  Rotter- 
dam. But  the  happier  times  of  peace  are  being  con- 
sidered. A  tender  deposits  you  and  your  baggage  at 
the  dock,  and  after  a  custom-house  examination  of  the 
superficial,  old-world  England  kind,  you  take  your  seat 
in  the  carriage  for  the  seven-hour  journey  to  London. 
At  a  certain  point  of  that  journey  you  take  out  the  guide 
that  shall  have  replaced  the  familiar  red-bound  books 
of  other  days,  and  thence  derive  a  vast  amount  of  more 
or  less  useful  information.  You  learn  that  near  by  are 
the  ruins  of  a  fine  abbey  church  of  the  twelfth  century; 
that  one  mile  from  the  junction  is  a  new  town,  a  creation 
of  the  Great  Western  Railway,  with  engineering  works 
occupying  an  area  of  two  hundred  acres,  and  employing 
twelve  thousand  workmen;  and  that  a  town  of  6,642 
inhabitants,  a  few  miles  farther  on,  is  well  known  for 
its  corn  and  cheese  markets,  and  possesses  manufactures 
of  cloth,  churns,  and  condensed  milk. 

Now  it  happens  that  in  one  of  Rudyard  KipHng's 
earlier  stories,  "My  Sunday  at  Home,"  there  was 
emphasized  the  very  scene  to  which  allusion  is  made  in 
the  above  quotation.  An  American  physician  is  mak- 
ing the  journey.  He  is  essentially  a  practical  man,  and 
yet  it  is  neither  the  cheese  market  nor  the  churn  manu- 
factory that  stirs  his  interest.     "So  this  is  the  Tess 


8  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

country, "he  says.  "And  over  there,  somewhere  to  the 
north,  is  Stonehenge,  where  she  died.  I  don*t  wonder 
people  write  novels  about  a  place  like  this."  So  on  the 
journey  from  Plymouth  to  London  it  is  worth  while  to 
take  along  as  a  companion  the  spirit  of  the  American 
physician  of  "My  Sunday  at  Home."  He  will  point  out 
on  the  way  much  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  conven- 
tional guide-book.  Devonshire  will  be  to  him  the  land 
of  Mr.  Eden  Phillpotts,  and  if  he  has  a  taste  for  lighter 
fiction  he  will  peer  out  of  the  train  window  over  the 
Tors  for  a  glimpse  of  Conan  Doyle's  spectral  Hound 
of  the  Baskervilles.  Miles  to  the  left  and  north,  he 
will  tell  you,  lies  the  Valley  of  the  Doones,  the  scenes 
of  the  struggles  between  great  John  Ridd  and  the  sinister 
Carver  Doone.  The  fact  that  Bath  lies  in  a  certain 
direction  will  remind  him  of  the  wanderings  of  Henry 
Fielding's  Tom  Jones,  and  perhaps  prompt  him  to  en- 
quire whether  you  are  addicted  to  lighter  fiction,  and  if 
so,  whether  you  have  read  Booth  Tarkington's  "Mon- 
sieur Beaucaire"  and  recall  the  scene  in  the  Pump  Room 
where  the  supposed  barber  emerges  in  all  the  splendour 
of  a  French  Prince  of  the  Blood  Royal.  Finally,  as  he 
takes  leave  of  you  in  the  Paddington  Station,  he  may 
flippantly  remark  that  it  was  from  this  very  station  that 
Sherlock  Holmes  and  Watson  started  to  investigate  the 
mysterious  disappearance  of  the  favourite  for  the  Wessex 
Cup  as  narrated  in  the  story  of  "Silver  Blaze." 

He  is  after  the  Pilgrim's  heart — that  American  phy- 
sician of  Kipling's  "My  Sunday  at  Home."  Had  the 
road  led  over  the  Sussex  Downs  his  talk  would  have 
been  of  the  scenes  and  people  of  "Rewards  and  Fairies," 


THE  TRANSATLANTIC  JOURNEY  9 

and  "Puck  of  Pook's  Hill,"  and  "An  Habitation  En- 
forced," or  of  characters  of  Dickens  or  Thackeray  or 
Trollope,  or  of  Conan  Doyle's  vigorous  novel  of  Corin- 
thian England  and  the  hard-faced  men  of  the  prize 
ring,  "Rodney  Stone." 

There  is  what  is  known  as  the  southerly  route.  The 
Pilgrim  confesses  to  great  ignorance  of,  and  little  inter- 
est in,  the  history  of  the  Azores.  As  these  lines  are  being 
reread  in  manuscript  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world  are 
on  the  islands,  for  there  men  of  the  United  States  Navy 
are  making  aerial  history.  But  the  sight  of  Ponta 
Delgada  is  certain  to  stir  him  to  chuckling  memory  of 
the  dinner  described  in  Mark  Twain's  "The  Innocents 
Abroad";  the  repast  at  the  end  of  which  the  astonished 
and  embarrassed  American  voyagers  were  confronted 
with  a  bill  reaching  startling  figures  in  mysterious 
milreis.  Eight  hundred  miles  more,  and  on  the  left 
rises  the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  and  on  the  right,  across  the 
strait,  Tangier  lying  white  in  the  sunshine.  At  the 
rock  the  mighty  Tartarin  was  landed  a  prisoner  aftei 
the  disastrous  attempt  to  colonize  Port  Tarascon;  and 
the  narrow,  climbing  streets  of  Tangier  played  a  part 
in  the  tales  of  A.  J.  Dawson's  "African  Nights  Enter- 
tainment," and  were  the  scenes  of  Richard  Harding 
Davis's  "The  Exiles,"  and  "The  King's  Jackal."  If 
the  line  be  one  that  the  Pilgrim  has  for  the  moment 
affectionately  in  mind,  the  ship's  course  will  lead  first 
to  a  Sicilian  port,  reminiscent  of  novels  old  and  new, 
and  of  the  poem  beginning:  "King  Robert  of  Sicily, 
brother  of  Pope  Urbain,  and  Valmond,  Emperor  of 
Allmayne";  thence  to  the  Bay  of  Naples,  where  low- 


lo         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

lying  Pompeii  recalls  the  most  famous  of  all  the  Bulwer- 
Lytton  stories;  then  past  Corsica  and  the  Island  of 
Monte  Cristo  from  which  the  romance  of  Alexandre 
Dumas  drew  its  title;  and  finally  into  the  harbour  of 
Marseilles,  rich  in  swarming  life  and  rich  in  fiction. 

Suppose  the  route  is  not  the  southerly  route,  nor  the 
route  direct  to  France,  nor  one  of  the  several  routes 
that  carry  through  England  or  Scotland,  but  a  route 
that  has  at  the  end  of  its  sea  journey  the  port  of  Rotter- 
dam or  the  port  of  Antwerp.  With  the  life  of  Holland 
the  works  of  Maarten  Maartens  and  of  Louis  Couperus 
have  made  many  American  readers  recently  familiar. 
But,  with  the  exception  of  the  name  of  Maeterlinck, 
for  the  spirit  of  the  Lowlands,  from  the  North  Sea  to  the 
French  frontier,  it  is  the  very  unusual  American  who 
turns  to  books  of  Dutch  or  Belgian  origin.  It  is  the 
land  of  Charles  Reade's  "The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth," 
with  its  gorgeous  pictures  of  the  men,  women,  and 
manners  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  the  land  of  Ouida's 
(otherwise  Louise  de  la  Ramee's)  "A  Dog  of  Flanders," 
and  "Two  Little  Wooden  Shoes."  It  is  the  land  of 
"La  Tulipe  Noire"  of  Dumas.  It  is  the  land  of  those 
stupendous  chapters  of  "Les  Miserables"  in  which 
Victor  Hugo  pictured  the  Battle  of  Waterloo.  It  is  the 
land  that  Henry  Esmond  visited  to  find  his  mother's 
grave.  Above  all,  it  is  the  land  invaded  by  a  timid  little 
English  girl  of  Russell  Square  whose  fate  was  somehow 
bound  up  in  the  sweep  and  rush  of  the  imperial  eagles. 

A  memory  frankly  intimate.  Two  years  ago,  measur- 
ing time  from  the  moment  that  these  lines  are  being 
written,  the  Pilgrim  was  behind  the  German  battle 


THE  TRANSATLANTIC  JOURNEY        ii 

lines  as  a  member  of  the  American  Commission  for 
Relief  in  Belgium  and  the  North  of  France.  In  the 
great  house  in  the  Avenue  Louise,  of  Brussels,  in  which 
he  was  quartered  there  was  a  Hbrary  composed  of  many 
books  in  many  languages  indicating  the  cosmopolitan 
tastes  of  the  owner  of  the  house,  who  had  fled  before  the 
tide  of  German  invasion.  Often,  of  nights,  in  the  dim 
h'ght,  the  Pilgrim  would  turn,  in  "Vanity  Fair,"  to  the 
pages  dealing  with  Brussels.  Perhaps  the  description 
would  be  of  the  Duchess  of  Richmond's  ball  the  night 
before  Waterloo;  the  moment  when  William  Dobbin 
goes  to  George  Osborne,  flushed  by  drink,  and  whispers: 
"The  enemy  has  crossed  the  Sambre.  Our  left  is  al- 
ready engaged,  and  we  are  to  march  in  three  hours." 
That  day,  very  likely,  the  Pilgrim  had  climbed  the 
actual  staircase  of  the  scene,  that  was  crowded  with 
Belgians  heart-heavy  at  the  fear  of  deportation,  and 
lined  by  sullen-faced  men  in  the  green-gray  of  the 
Imperial  German  Empire.  Or  perhaps  the  eyes  would 
be  skimming  the  sentences  telling  how,  through  the 
open  windows,  came  a  dull,  distant  sound  over  the  sun- 
lighted  roofs  to  the  southward,  how:  "God  defend  us, 
it*s  cannon!"  cried.  Mrs.  Major  O'Dowd,  and  how  a 
thousand  pale  and  anxious  faces  might  be  seen  looking 
from  other  casements.  Something  would  disturb  the 
reading;  a  dull,  distant  sound  of  the  present  and  not  the 
past  borne  by  the  night  wind;  the  echoes  of  the  guns  of 
a  battle  beside  which  Waterloo  seems  a  border  skirmish. 
There  is  the  memory  of  one  day  of  following  the 
literary  trail  when  the  Pilgrim  was  not  alone,  but  in 
company  the  most  congenial  and  delightful  for  the  pur- 


12        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

pose.  It  was  a  day  very  near  the  end,  when  the  declara- 
tion of  war  by  the  United  States  was  impending,  and 
the  fate  of  the  Americans  behind  the  German  lines 
seemed  to  be  hanging  in  the  balance.  That  day  the 
Pilgrim  lunched  at  the  American  Legation  in  the  Rue 
de  Treves,  and  afterward,  in  company  with  the  Minis- 
ter, started  out  to  prowl  among  streets  old  and  new. 
We  sought  the  house  where  Byron  had  for  a  brief  time 
lived,  the  structure  that  sheltered  Hugo  in  political 
exile,  and  the  one  that  sheltered  Dumas  in  financial 
exile.  At  the  threshold  of  the  dwelling  that  Charlotte 
Bronte  once  inhabited  we  discussed  "Villette,"  and 
"The  Professor,"  and  the  demure  little  Englishwoman's 
infatuation  for  M.  Heger,  and  the  unutterable  boredom 
which  the  unresponsive  professor  of  the  Pensionnat  de 
Demoiselles  suffered  in  consequence.  Approximately 
we  placed  the  hotel  where  Lady  Bareacres  and  her  dia- 
monds were  mocked  by  Rebecca  Crawley  of  the  baleful 
green  eyes,  and  the  street  down  which  Jos  Sedley 
clattered  on  horseback  in  his  flight  to  Ghent.  At  the 
flower  market  in  the  Grand  Place  we  pictured  Emmy 
leaning  proudly  on  her  husband's  arm,  the  awkward 
Dobbin  dancing  attendance,  and  the  red-faced  O'Dowd 
and  his  ridiculous  but  kind-hearted  wife.  For  a  few 
brief  hours  the  green-gray  uniforms  of  the  invaders, 
and  the  Pickelhauben,  and  the  flag  of  black,  white,  and 
red  flying  over  the  Palais  de  Justice  were  far  away. 


II.  THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO 

The  Astonishing  Hugo — The  Publication  of  '^Les  Miserables" — 
The  Rue  de  Clichy^  Hugo's  First  Paris  Home — Associations  of 
the  Southern  Bank — Hugo's  Marriage — "Hernani" — "Hans 
d'Islande"—"Bug-Jargar—The  Writing  of  "Notre  Dame" 
— The  Place  des  Vosges  Residence — Exile — The  Trail  of  Esmer- 
alda— The  Source  of  "Les  Miserables" — The  Flight  of  Jean 
Valjean  and  the  Pursuit  of  J  avert. 

FOR  the  better  comprehension  of  the  extraordi- 
nary Paris  of  the  novels  of  Victor  Hugo  it  is  worth 
while  considering  the  thousand  and  one  anecdotes 
that  have  come  down  to  us,  anecdotes  perhaps  rather 
trivial  in  themselves,  but  illuminating  an  egotism  so 
colossal  that  at  times  it  seems  to  border  on  insanity. 
There  shall  be  no  attempt  to  weigh  the  stories,  nor  to 
sift  the  authentic  from  the  apocryphal.  There  are  too 
many  of  them;  coming  from  too  many  sources.  They 
flood  the  memory,  leaving  an  ineradicable  impression 
that  does  not,  however,  in  the  least  blind  to  the  com- 
manding genius  or  the  rich  achievement.  To  indicate, 
as  briefly  as  possible,  the  nature  of  these  tales. 

Hugo  surrounded,  as  usual,  by  a  group  of  his  adorers. 
The  particular  scene  is  of  no  importance.  Discussion  as 
to  the  most  fitting  way  in  which  to  commemorate  his 
grandeur  for  posterity.  A  monument?  It  is  not 
enough.     A   street   renamed?    Quite   inadequate.     A 


14         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

boulevard?  An  entire  quarter?  Finally  the  daring 
suggestion;  Why  should  not  Paris  herself  be  hence- 
forth known  as  **Hugo"?  Without  a  smile  the  great 
man  nods  grave  approval.  "Who  knows,"  he  says; 
"perhaps  it  will  come  to  that."  An  Englishman  visit- 
ing Hugo  with  a  letter  of  introduction,  and  with  many 
courteous  apologies  venturing  to  suggest  that  in  future 
editions  the  name  "Tom  Jim-Jack"  be  changed  to  a 
more  probable  designation.  "What  gives  you  the  right 
to  criticize  a  masterpiece?"  "My  admiration  for  it, 
and  the  fact  that,  being  an  Englishman  myself,  I  know 
that  the  name  you  have  chosen  for  your  principal 
character  is  a  name  that  is  quite  impossible."  Then 
Hugo,  drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height  and  waving 
the  visitor  to  the  door:  "Yes,  you  are  an  Englishman. 
But  I — /  am  Victor  Hugo"!  The  poet  finding  himself 
one  day  in  a  railway  train  in  company  with  two  English- 
women who  spoke  French.  The  fact  that  Hugo,  despite 
his  years  of  residence  on  English  territory,  the  years 
of  his  exile  in  Jersey  and  Guernsey,  did  not  know  a  word 
of  English,  leads  to  the  suggestion  that  the  condition 
must  be  inconvenient  for  travel  in  England.  To  which 
the  great  man  repHes:  "When  England  wants  to  talk  to 
me  she  will  learn  my  language."  It  was  Hugo  himself 
who  told  that  story,  adding:  "From  their  amazement 
at  this  answer  it  was  evident  that  they  did  not  know 
who  I  was."*  The  Emperor  of  Brazil  expressing  a  wish 
to  meet  the  poet  personally.  Hugo  saying:  "I  do  not 
visit  emperors,"  which  resulted  in  Dom  Pedro's  courte- 
ous: "Let  not  that  be  an  obstacle  to  our  meeting. 
M.  Victor  Hugo  has  the  advantage  over  me  of  age  and 


THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO  15 

superior  genius.  I,  therefore,  will  visit  him.'*  Hugo's 
proposal  when  the  Germans  were  besieging  Paris  that 
the  issue  rest  on  a  personal  encounter  between  him  and 
the  King  of  Prussia.  "We  are  both  old.  He  is  a 
powerful  sovereign.  I  am  a  great  poet.  We  are  there- 
fore equal.  Why  should  we  not  decide  by  single  combat 
the  quarrel  which  divides  our  two  nations  and  thus 
spare  many  lives.'*" 

Adolphe  Brisson,  the  son-in-law  of  Francisque  Sar- 
cey,  has  written  the  story  of  how  the  Belgian,  Lacroix, 
became  the  pubHsher  of  "Les  Miserables."  It  was  in 
1 86 1,  when  Hugo  was  in  exile,  living  at  Haute ville 
House.  Lacroix,  who  had  heard  that  the  book  had  just 
been  finished,  vowed  that  he  would  have  it,  and  wrote 
Hugo  a  lyric  letter,  declaring  himself  ready  to  accept 
any  conditions,  and  adding:  "Genius  is  not  to  be 
bargained  with."  After  considerable  negotiation  La- 
croix was  invited  to  the  Channel  island,  where,  after  a 
business  interview,  he  bound  himself  in  writing  to  spend 
vast  sums  of  which  he  had  not  a  single  penny.  To 
quote  Brisson:  "Where  should  he  find  the  125,000 
francs  to  be  paid  on  the  delivery  of  the  manuscript.? 
How  should  he  arrange  with  the  publishers,  Renduel 
and  Gosselin,  who  had  contracts  giving  them  the  right 
to  exploit  the  first  two  volumes  of  *Les  Miserables'? 
And,  if  the  Emperor  should  forbid  the  appearance  of 
the  work  in  France,  what  then?  .  .  .  As  he  was 
about  finally  to  sign  Lacroix  was  seized  with  a  strange 
scruple.  He  saw,  upon  the  table,  a  vast  pile  of  black- 
ened sheets.  It  was  the  manuscript  of  the  first  two 
volumes.    Only  for  a  glance  at  the  treasure!    'May 


i6         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

I  examine  a  little?'  The  hand  of  Hugo — his  Burgrave 
hand — fell  heavily  upon  the  sheets,  and  in  a  hard 
tone  he  said:  *No,  it  is  impossible.*  Then  he  added 
by  way  of  pleasantry,  though  the  hurt  pride  was 
discernible  under  the  badinage:  'Suppose  it  is 
blank  paper.  I  have  put  my  name  there.  That 
suffices.*" 

A  street  that  has  changed  less  in  the  course  of  a 
hundred  years  than  most  Paris  streets  is  the  Rue  de 
CHchy,  which  begins  by  the  Trinite  and  runs  north  to 
the  exterior  boulevards.  It  is  a  thoroughfare  familiar  to 
many  thousands  of  Americans  as  the  home  of  a  number 
of  -pensions  that  have  catered  to  Enghsh-speaking  visi- 
tors in  Paris.  In  the  Rue  de  Clichy,  at  No.  24,  was 
the  first  Paris  home  of  Victor  Hugo.  The  house,  like 
most  of  those  in  which  the  poet  spent  his  early  days,  has 
been  entirely  destroyed,  and  its  site  is  now  part  of  the 
square  surrounding  the  Trinite  church.  It  was  the 
first  place  of  residence  of  which  Hugo  had  any  distinct 
recollection.  To  the  end  of  his  days  he  retained  the 
impression  of  a  goat  in  the  courtyard,  of  a  well  overhung 
by  a  weeping  willow,  and  of  a  cattle-trough  near  the 
well.  Then  there  was  a  move  to  the  southern  bank 
of  the  river,  to  No.  12  Impasse  des  Feuillantines,  an 
isolated  mansion  with  a  big  garden  and  fine  trees. 
There  is  a  Rue  des  Feuillantines  not  far  from  the  Luxem- 
bourg Garden  in  the  Paris  of  to-day,  but  Victorien 
Sardou  has  written:  "Through  these  gardens,  through 
these  silent  streets  so  propitious  to  quiet  labour,  and 
scenting  of  lilacs  and  blossoming  with  pink  and  white 


THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO  17 

chestnuts,  new  roads  have  been  cut:  the  Saint-Germain 
and  Saint-Michel  boulevards,  the  Rue  de  Rennes  and 
Gay-Lussac,  the  Rue  Monge  which  caused  the  demoli- 
tion of  the  rustic  cottage  where  Pascal  died  in  the  Rue 
Saint-£tienne  itself;  and  the  Rue  Claude-Bernard,  which 
did  away  with  the  Feuillantines,  where  Victor  Hugo, 
as  a  child,  used  to  chase  butterflies/*  The  American, 
Benjamin  Ellis  Martin,  recorded,  twenty  years  ago; 
**By  a  curious  coincidence,  at  No.  12  Rue  des  Feuil- 
lantines— which  must  not  be  confused,  as  it  is  often 
confused,  with  the  Impasse  of  the  same  name — there 
stands  just  such  an  old  house,  in  the  midst  of  just 
such  gardens,  shaded  by  just  such  old  trees,  as 
Hugo  describes  in  the  pathetic  reminiscences  of  his 
youth." 

Then  there  was  a  migration  of  a  mile  to  the  west  to  the 
still-existing  Rue  du  Cherche-Midi,  which  may  be  in- 
dicated by  its  proximity  to  the  Conseil-de-Guerre,  or 
better  still,  as  being  within  a  block  of  the  great  depart- 
ment store,  dear  to  the  hearts  of  American  shoppers, 
known  as  the  "Bon  Marche.'*  All  this  time  Victor's 
father.  General  Hugo,  had  been  with  the  French 
armies  of  occupation  in  Spain.  He  made  a  brief  ap- 
pearance on  the  scene  during  the  Hundred  Days,  but 
his  children  seem  to  have  been  entirely  under  the  influ- 
ence of  their  Bourbon-loving  mother,  and  one  of  Victor's 
first  literary  eflFusions  was  a  denunciation  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  as  a  tyrant  usurper,  written  a  few  days  after 
Waterloo,  when  the  boy  was  in  his  fourteenth  year. 
After  a  short  period  at  a  boarding  school  in  the  Rue 
Sainte-Marguerite  Victor  entered  the  Lycee  Louis-le- 


i8        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Grand,  which  then  stood — as  it  stands  now,  though  the 
structure  has  been  rebuilt — facing  the  Rue  Saint- 
Jacques,  between  the  Sorbonne  and  the  Pantheon.  In 
i8i8,  when  Victor  was  writing  "Bug-Jargal,"  Madame 
Hugo  removed  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Institute 
of  France,  to  a  house  in  the  Rue  des  Vieux-Augustins, 
long  since  torn  down,  its  site  now  a  part  of  the  court- 
yard of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts.  Three  years  later 
a  change  was  made  to  No.  lo  Rue  des  Mezieres,  which, 
in  its  present  form,  runs  from  the  Rue  de  Rennes  to  the 
Rue  Bonaparte.  About  this  time  Victor  began  to 
cause  some  stir  in  the  world.  Chateaubriand  sent  for 
him  and  was  supposed  to  have  dubbed  him  "The  Sub- 
lime Child";  and  Lamartine  described  him  as  **a  studi- 
ous youth,  with  a  fine,  massive  head,  intelligent  and 
thoughtful" — a  man  "whose  pen  can  now  charm  or 
terrify  the  world." 

Madame  Hugo  died;  Victor  proposed  marriage,  form- 
ally, to  Adele  Foucher,  and  was  accepted;  he  fought  a 
duel  with  a  guardsman  and  was  wounded  in  the  arm; 
he  went  to  live  on  the  top  floor  of  No.  30  Rue  du 
Dragon,  near  Saint-Germain-des-Pres,  existing  on  700 
francs  a  year,  an  experience  which  he  was  later  to  de- 
scribe in  connection  with  Marius  of  "Les  Miserables." 
Then  he  and  Adele  were  married,  and  the  young  couple 
went  to  live,  first  in  the  Rue  du  Cherche-Midi,  and 
later  at  No.  90  Rue  de  Vaugirard.  In  the  latter  house 
"Han  dTslande"  was  written,  and  the  immature 
"Bug-Jargal "  rewritten.  A  more  commodious  residence 
was  found  in  1828  in  the  Rue  Notre  Dame  des  Champs, 
and  there  they  remained  until  the  success  of  "Hernani" 


THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO  19 

brought  so  many  noisy  admirers  to  the  door  that  the 
landlady  informed  the  Hugos  that  their  presence  had 
ceased  to  be  desirable.  With  the  exception  of  that  first 
home  in  the  Rue  de  Clichy,  all  of  Victor  Hugo's  early 
residences  are  associated  with  a  particular  quarter  of 
Paris.  To  follow  the  trail  as  well  as  it  can  be  followed 
after  the  many  years  is  a  matter  merely  of  a  few 
hours. 

In  1831  the  Hugos  crossed  the  river  and  went  to  live 
at  No.  9  Rue  Jean-Goujon,  in  the  Champs-£lysees, 
then  almost  an  outlying  district.  Hugo  had  contracted 
some  time  before  with  a  publisher  for  "Notre  Dame  de 
Paris,"  but  had  failed  to  live  up  to  his  written  agreement 
in  the  matter  of  time.  A  new  understanding  called  for 
the  delivery  of  the  manuscript  within  five  months. 
Hugo  bought  a  great  gray  woolen  wrapper  that  covered 
him  from  head  to  foot;  locked  up  all  his  clothes,  lest  he 
should  be  tempted  to  go  out;  and,  carrying  off  his  ink 
bottle  to  his  study,  applied  himself  to  his  labour  just  as 
if  he  had  been  in  prison.  He  never  left  the  table  except 
for  food  and  sleep,  and  the  sole  recreation  that  he 
allowed  himself  was  an  hour's  talk  after  dinner  with 
some  friend  who  might  drop  in,  and  to  whom  he  oc- 
casionally read  the  pages  that  had  been  written  during 
the  day.  As  a  result  of  the  regime  by  which  it  was 
written  he  once  thought  of  calling  the  story  "What 
Came  Out  of  a  Bottle  of  Ink."  Probably  very  few 
persons  remember  that  about  that  time  Hugo  pro- 
jected a  work  that  was  never  written,  but  which  ap- 
parently was  to  have  been  a  kind  of  sequel  to  "Notre 
Dame,'*  for  it  was  to  have  borne  the  title:  "Le  Fils  de 


20         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

la  Bossue,"  although  the  identity  of  the  female  hunch- 
back is  a  matter  for  conjecture. 

Then,  in  the  autumn  of  1832,  the  Hugos  moved  to 
the  house  which  more  than  any  other  remains  associated 
with  the  Hugo  legend.  It  is  the  structure  at  No.  6 
Place  des  Vosges,  now  the  Hugo  Museum,  where  the 
poet  lived  from  1832  till  1848.  Within  these  walls 
the  romance  of  French  history  as  well  as  the  romance 
of  French  fiction  has  ever  lurked.  The  use  of  the 
structure  by  Dumas  as  the  home  of  the  sinister  Milady 
of  "The  Three  Guardsmen"  belongs  to  another  chapter. 
But  Marion  Delorme  lived  there,  and  De  Vigny  de- 
scribed it  as  it  was  in  her  time  in  his  "Cinq-Mars.'* 
Both  Dumas  and  De  Vigny  made  use  in  fiction  of  their 
personal  knowledge  of  the  back  entrance  that  still 
leads  toward  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine  by  way  of  the 
Impasse  Guemenee.  Actual  use  of  it  was  made  during 
the  street  fighting  of  the  1 848  Revolution  by  National 
Guardsmen,  who,  bound  from  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine 
to  head  off  the  soldiers  of  Louis-Philippe  in  the  square 
beyond,  invaded  Hugo's  deserted  apartment.  The 
story  is  told  that  the  leader  of  the  band  found  some 
written  sheets  on  the  table,  and  read  them  aloud  to  his 
followers.  It  was  the  manuscript  of  "Les  Miserables," 
just  begun,  but  not  finished  until  sixteen  years  later. 
There  is  another  story  connected  with  the  apartment 
to  the  effect  that  Hugo,  in  his  vanity,  used  to  sit  on  a 
throne  on  a  dais,  under  a  canopy,  and  extend  his  hand 
to  be  kissed  by  his  admirers.  An  absurd  story;  but  not 
altogether  an  unnatural  one. 

After  Louis-Philippe  lost  his  throne  Victor  Hugo 


THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO  21 

went  to  live  in  the  Rue  dTsIy,  and  thence  to  the  Rue  de 
la  Tour  d'Auvergne.  Then  came  the  coup  d'etat^  and 
with  it  the  exile  that  lasted  until  the  power  of  the  Third 
Napoleon  was  finally  shattered  at  Sedan.  In  1873  he 
occupied  for  a  time  a  house  at  Auteuil,  and  then  moved 
to  an  apartment  at  No.  66  Rue  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  a 
street  that  runs  from  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare  to  the  Place 
Pigalle.  Then  chance  took  him  to  No.  21  Rue  de 
Clichy,  the  very  street  where  he  had  passed  some  of  his 
early  years,  and  close  to  the  school  where  he  had  learned 
to  read.  No.  21  is  on  the  west  side  of  the  street,  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  d'Athenes.  From  there,  in  1878, 
he  made  his  last  removal,  to  the  Avenue  d'Eylau,  re- 
named the  Avenue  Victor  Hugo,  one  of  the  splendid 
thoroughfares  that  radiate  from  the  Arc  de  Triomphe. 
The  exact  number  was  130,  and  it  was,  and  is,  near  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne.  There  is  another  monument  of 
Paris  associated  with  the  memory  of  Victor  Hugo;  a 
monument  that  probably  no  American  visiting  Paris 
has  failed  to  see.  It  is  the  Strasbourg  Statue  in  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  that  for  forty-seven  years  was 
decorated  with  the  immortelles  that  were  so  triumph- 
antly removed  on  the  nth  of  November,  191 8.  The 
model  for  that  statue,  of  which  Pradier  said  that  the  ex- 
pression would  change  the  moment  that  the  lost  Alsace 
was  restored  to  France,  was  the  Juliette  Drouet  who 
played  such  a  conspicuous  part  in  Hugo's  private  hfe. 

The  Paris  of  the  fiction  of  Victor  Hugo  is  the  Paris 
of  two  books,  the  fifteenth-century  town  of  "Notre 
Dame"  and  the  city  of  his  youth  that  he  had  in  mind 
when,  in  his  Guernsey  home,  he  was  toiling  on  the  great 


22         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

edifice  of  "Les  Miserables."  Of  the  former  tale  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  has  written:  "We  forget  all  that 
enumeration  of  palaces  and  churches  and  convents 
which  occupies  so  many  pages  of  admirable  description, 
and  the  thoughtless  reader  might  be  incHned  to  conclude 
from  this  that  they  were  pages  thrown  away;  but  this 
is  not  so:  we  forget  indeed  the  details,  as  we  forget  or 
do  not  see  the  different  layers  of  paint  on  a  completed 
picture;  but  the  thing  desired  has  been  accomplished, 
and  we  carry  away  with  us  a  sense  of  the  'Gothic  pro- 
file' of  the  city,  of  the  'surprising  forest  of  pinnacles 
and  towers  and  belfries,'  and  we  know  not  of  what  rich 
and  intricate  and  quaint.  And  throughout,  Notre 
Dame  has  been  held  up  over  Paris  by  a  height  far 
greater  than  that  of  its  twin  towers:  the  Cathedral  is 
present  to  us  from  the  first  page  to  the  last;  the  title 
has  given  us  the  clew,  and  already  in  the  Palais  de 
Justice  the  story  begins  to  attach  itself  to  that  building 
by  character  after  character.  It  is  purely  an  effect 
of  mirage.  Hugo  has  peopled  this  Gothic  city,  and 
above  all,  this  Gothic  church,  with  a  race  of  men  even 
more  distinctly  Gothic  than  their  surroundings." 

Stevenson's  insistence  on  the  Gothic  aspect  of  the 
Paris  of  "Notre  Dame"  is  a  direct  reflection  of  Hugo 
himself,  who  felt,  in  penning  the  tale,  that  he  should 
act  as  a  kind  of  interpreting  guide  to  the  readers  of  his 
generation,  and  to  that  end  wrote  the  chapter  "A 
Bird's-Eye  View  of  Paris,"  in  which  he  reconstructed 
the  old  city  of  Quasimodo  and  Esmeralda.  Of  the 
fifteenth-century  Paris  he  said:  "It  was  not  only  a 
beautiful  city;  it  was  a  uniform,  consistent  city,  an 


Old  Paris  from  Notre  Dame.  Dominant  in  French  literature  as  in 
French  history  have  been  the  Towers  of  Notre  Dame.  Balzac,  Hugo, 
Dumas  are  among  the  giants  who  have  described  them.  Of  Hugo's  novel 
bearing  the  old  cathedral's  name  Stevenson  has  said:  "What  is  Quasimodo 
but  an  animated  gargoyle?" 


THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO  23 

architectural  and  historic  product  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
a  chronicle  in  stone.  It  was  a  city  formed  of  two 
strata  only — the  bastard  Roman  and  the  Gothic;  for 
the  pure  Roman  stratum  had  long  since  disappeared, 
except  in  the  Baths  of  Julian,  where  it  still  broke 
through  the  thick  crust  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Gothic 
Paris  was  complete  for  an  instant  only.  Since  then  the 
great  city  has  grown  daily  and  daily  more  deformed. 
Gothic  Paris,  which  swallowed  up  the  Paris  of  the  bast- 
ard Roman  period,  vanished  in  its  turn;  but  who  can 
say  what  manner  of  Paris  has  replaced  it.?'* 

Dumas  found — or,  what  is  far  more  likely,  one  of  his 
army  of  collaborators  found,  in  the  archives  of  the 
French  secret  police,  the  crude  plot  upon  which  "The 
Count  of  Monte  Cristo"  was  builded.  To  the  same 
source  Hugo  owed  the  suggestion  of  "Les  Miserables," 
for  Jean  Valjean,  like  Edmond  Dantes,  had  an  original 
in  real  life.  The  record  of  this  man,  whose  name  was 
Urbain  Lemelle,  was  taken  from  the  notes  of  M. 
Moreau-Christophe,  the  Chief  Inspector  of  Prisons 
under  Napoleon  III.  Like  Jean  Valjean,  Lemelle  was 
the  abandoned  child  of  a  drunken  father.  In  his  early 
youth  he  was  sheltered  by  a  kind-hearted  peasant,  and 
six  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in  taking  care  of  cows 
and  sheep.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  he  determined  to 
become  a  sailor,  and  began  as  cabin  boy  on  a  boat  from 
Angers.  Three  years  later,  for  a  trifling  theft  com- 
mitted at  the  instigation  of  a  comrade,  he  was  con- 
demned to  seven  years*  penal  servitude. 

During  the  term  of  his  punishment  Lemelle  proved 
an  exemplary  prisoner — industrious,  resigned,  and  re- 


24        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

ligious.  After  he  had  paid  what  he  considered  his 
debt  to  society,  he  returned  to  Angers,  resolved  to  lead 
a  worthy  Hfe.  He  found  all  doors  closed  against  him; 
all  employment  denied  him.  One  day,  while  roaming 
through  the  country,  he  stopped  to  rest  in  a  field  where 
there  were  horses  at  liberty.  The  idea  entered  his  head 
to  borrow  a  horse,  ride  to  the  seaport,  thirty  miles  away, 
and  embark  for  the  New  World,  where  he  would  be  free 
to  begin  a  new  life.  Without  saddle  or  bridle  he  rode 
all  night,  reaching  his  destination  in  the  early  morning, 
and  turning  the  horse  loose  before  entering  the  town. 
In  the  town  he  was  arrested  on  suspicion,  but  managed 
to  escape,  and  made  his  way  to  Nantes,  where  he  found 
that  his  lack  of  papers  made  it  impossible  for  him  to 
embark.  He  returned  to  Angers,  was  arrested  for  the 
theft  of  the  horse,  and  sentenced  to  twelve  years*  penal 
servitude  in  Brest.  At  the-end  of  four  years  he  escaped, 
made  his  way  to  Paris,  and  there,  by  diligence,  intelli- 
gence, and  integrity,  rose  step  by  step  to  prosperity. 
He  married  and  acquired  a  certain  position.  One 
Sunday,  seven  years  after  his  marriage,  he  was  walking 
with  his  wife  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city,  when  he  was 
recognized  by  his  Javert,  a  policeman  who  had  been  a 
former  convict.  Lemelle  was  denounced,  arrested,  and 
sent  back  to  Brest  to  finish  the  eight  years  he  still  had 
to  serve,  in  addition  to  supplementary  years  for  the 
crime  of  escaping.  After  serving  part  of  the  sentence 
he  was  pardoned  by  Louis-Philippe,  at  the  intercession 
of  M.  Moreau-Christophe,  who  had  learned  his  story. 

Practically  all  of  "Les  Miserables"  was  written  in  the 
period  of  exile,  after  many  years'  absence  from  Paris. 


THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO  25 

It  was  the  Paris  of  his  youth,  the  Paris  which  he  had 
religiously  carried  away  in  his  memory,  the  Paris  of 
which  he  spoke  as  his  "mental  birthplace"  that  he  put 
into  the  story.  But  on  memory  alone  he  felt  that  he 
could  not  rely  with  a  certainty  of  absolute  accuracy, 
and  so,  in  beginning  those  marvellous  chapters  describ- 
ing the  flight  of  Jean  Valjean  and  Cosette  and  the  pur- 
suit by  Javert  and  his  men,  he  left  a  loop-hole  by  the  use 
of  the  words:  "It  is  possible  that  at  the  present  day 
there  is  neither  street  nor  house  at  the  spot  where  the 
author  proposes  to  lead  the  reader,  saying:  *In  such  a 
street  there  is  such  a  house/  _If  the  readers  like  to  take 
the  trouble  they  can  verify.  As  for  him  he  does  not 
know  new  Paris,  and  writes  with  old  Paris  before  his 
eyes  as  an  illusion  which  is  precious  to  him." 

The  flight  began  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Gobe- 
lins, which  for  three  hundred  years  has  been  the  state 
manufactory  of  the  famous  tapestry  of  the  name.  The 
Gorbeau  house,  which  at  first  sight  "seemed  small  as  a 
cottage,  but  which  in  reality  was  as  large  as  a  cathe- 
dral," was  just  where  Hugo  placed  it,  on  the  site  of 
Nos.  50  and  52  Boulevard  de  I'Hopital,  almost  directly 
opposite  the  Rue  de  la  Barriere-des-Gobelins,  now 
called  the  Rue  Fagon.  To  find  to-day  the  exact  spot 
occupied  by  the  old  tenement,  go  to  the  little  market 
place  that  is  separated  from  the  Place  dTtalie  by  the 
Mairie  of  the  XIII  Arrondissement.  While  living  in 
the  Gorbeau  house  Jean  Valjean  usually  went  to  Saint- 
Medard,  which  was  the  nearest  church.  Georges  Cain, 
of  the  Carnavalet,  has  written  of  it  as  "Gloomy,  rat- 
gnawed,  and  poverty-stricken,"  having  left  far  behind 


26 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


its  days  of  miracles.  Little  changed,  that  church  still 
stands  near  the  northern  end  of  the  Avenue  des  Gobe- 
lins. Coming  out  of  Saint-Medard  one  evening  Jean 
Valjean  gave  alms  to  a  beggar,  and  recognized  the  face 
of  Javert. 

At  different  times  the  present  Pilgrim  has  attempted 
to  follow  the  subsequent  trail.     On  one  such  occasion 

he  was  materially 
helped  by  notes  of  a 
similar  search  made  by 
Benjamin  Ellis  Martin. 
That  occasion  was  in 
the  early  summer  of 
1917,  and  the  changes 
that  he  found  then 
were  substantially  the 
changes  that  Mr. 
Martin  had  recorded 
in  an  investigation  of 
some  eighteen  or 
twenty  years  before. 
Taking  a  winding  way 
to  the  Seine,  through 
the  deserted  region  be- 
tween the  Jardin  des 
Plantes  and  Val-de- 
Grace,  Jean  Valjean  wisely  doubled  on  his  track.  At 
one  point  he  was  almost  in  the  shadow  of  the  structure 
in  which  Balzac's  Pere  Goriot  was  perhaps  living  at 
the  very  moment.  He  described  several  labyrinths  in 
the  Quartier  Mouffetard,  which  was  as  fast  asleep  as  if  it 


A  STREET  OF  VALJEAN* S  FLIGHT 


THE  PARIS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO  27 

was  still  subject  to  mediaeval  discipline  and  the  yoke 
of  the  curfew.  As  the  clock  of  Saint-£tienne-du-Mont 
struck  eleven  he  passed  the  police  station  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood, which  Hugo  placed  at  No.  14  Rue  de  Pontoise, 
(a  street  that  now  crosses  the  Boulevard  Saint-Germain) 
near  its  eastern  end,  but  which  Mr.  Martin  claims  has 
always  stood  where  it  stands  to-day,  at  No.  3 1  Rue  de 
Poissy,  the  next  parallel  street.  There,  under  the 
moonlight,  Jean  Valjean  recognized  Javert  perfectly. 

Then,  bent  on  putting  the  river  between  himself  and 
his  pursuers,  Valjean  made  a  long  circuit  around  by 
the  College  Rollin,  and  by  the  lower  streets  skirting 
the  Jardin  des  Plantes  until  he  reached  the  quai.  It 
is  now  the  Quai  Saint-Bernard,  and  the  fleeing  man  fol- 
lowed it  along  the  river  bank  to  the  present  Place  Val- 
hubert,  where  he  crossed  the  Pont  d'Austerlitz,  and 
plunged  into  the  maze  of  roads  and  lanes,  lined  with 
woodyards  and  walls,  on  the  northern  side  of  the  Seine. 
Reaching  a  little  street,  the  Rue  du  Chemin-Vert-St- 
Antoine,  he  looked  back,  and  saw  the  whole  length 
of  the  Pont  d'Austerlitz,  and  the  four  shadows  that  had 
just  come  upon  it.  Resuming  the  journey  he  finally 
came  to  the  wall  of  the  Convent  of  the  Little  Picpus. 
The  aspect  of  that  part  of  the  city  associated  with  the 
latter  half  of  the  flight  has  so  entirely  changed  that  to 
attempt  to  follow  the  footsteps  of  Jean  Valjean  and 
Cosette  would  be  waste  of  time.  But  half  an  hour's 
rambling  near  the  Pantheon,  begun  with  the  winding 
descent  of  the  slope  from  the  church  of  Saint-Etienne- 
du-Mont,  will  reveal  quaint  old-world  streets  that 
retain  something  of  the  flavour  of  that  epic  flight. 


III.  THE  PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND 
DICKENS 

"The  Ballad  of  the  Bouillabaisse"— Terre's  Tavern— 'A 
Caution  to  Travellers" — Thackeray  as  Art  Student  and  Corres- 
pondent— The  Early  Married  Life — Mrs.  Brookjield — The  Paris 
of  "  Vanity  Fair"  "  The  Nevocomes"  and  "  The  Adventures  of 
Philip"— The  Paris  of  Dickens's  "A  Tale  of  Two  Cities"— 
Dickens's  Days  in  Paris. 

A  street  there  is  in  Paris  famous, 
For  which  no  rhyme  our  language  yields. 
Rue  Neuve  des  Petits  Champs  its  name  is. 
The  New  Street  of  the  Little  Fields. 
And  there's  an  inn  not  rich  and  splendid, 
But  still  in  comfortable  case. 
The  which  in  youth  I  oft  attended 
To  eat  a  plate  of  bouillabaisse. 

THE  genial  Laird,  one  of  the  Three  Musketeers 
of  the  Brush  of  Mr.  Du  Maurier's  "Trilby," 
tossed  on  a  bed  of  fever,  while  kindly  French 
nurses  in  attendance  wept  as  they  listened  to  the 
reverential  voice  in  which  he  mumbled  over  what  they 
conceived  to  be  his  prayers.  But  these  "prayers,'* 
strangely  enough,  always  ended  with  allusion 

Red  peppers,  garlic,  roach,  and  dace. 
All  these  you  get  in  Terre's  Tavern 
In  that  one  dish  of  bouillabaisse. 
28 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS    29 

Thousands  of  other  Scotchmen,  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  Britons  and  of  Americans  have  thrilled,  as  Sandy 
McAllister  of  Cockpen  did,  over  the  verses  into  which 
Thackeray,  writing  in  a  vein  of  assumed  lightness, 
poured  so  much  of  the  feeling  of  his  lost  youth.  As 
poetry,  "The  Ballad  of  the  Bouillabaisse"  is  not  to 
be  ranked  with  Keats's"OdeonaGrecian  Urn."  Neither 
is  Kipling's  "Mandalay."  Thackeray  himself  wrote 
many  better  verses,  but  none  which  has  so  delighted  the 
ear  and  the  palate  of  posterity,  and  which  is  so  likely 
to  endure.  Every  now  and  then  its  vitality  is  attested 
by  some  new  Columbus  who  discovers  in  a  Paris  res- 
taurant to  his  liking  the  original  of  Terre's  Tavern. 
For  example  there  was  the  American,  Julian  Street, 
who,  six  or  seven  years  ago  in  a  little  book  called  "Paris 
a  la  Carte,"  wrote:  "Those  who  remember  Thackeray's 
'Ballad  of  the  Bouillabaisse'  will  find  the  restaurant 
therein  celebrated  a  few  blocks  back  of  the  Cafe  La- 
perousse,  near  the  Church  of  Saint-Germain-des-Pres. 
I  do  not  know  that  bouillabaisse  may  still  be  had  there, 
but  I  hope  so.     Perhaps  you  will  find  out." 

Now  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  restaurant  of  Mr.  Street's 
discovery  actually  has  certain  Thackerayan  associa- 
tions. Thackeray  dined  there  often  when  he  was  an  art 
student,  and  to  this  day  there  hangs  on  the  wall  a 
portrait  of  the  novelist  at  table,  and  an  appended  note 
setting  forth  the  facts  of  his  fame  and  his  patronage. 
But  it  never  was  Terre's.  The  site  of  the  lair  of  the 
bouillabaisse  is  not  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  at  all, 
but  is  almost  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  great  boule- 
vards and  the  fashionable  shops  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix. 


30         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Soon  after  Thackeray's  Paris  days  the  Rue  Neuve  des 
Petits  Champs  became  the  Rue  des  Petits  Champs.  It 
is  that  to-day,  running  from  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  upon 
which  its  western  end  abuts,  diagonally  across  the 
Avenue  de  TOpera,  back  of  the  gardens  of  the  Palais 
Royal,  and  almost  to  the  Place  des  Victoires.  The 
number  of  the  building  occupied  by  Terre's  Tavern  was 
originally  i6.  The  structure  that  now  occupies  the 
site  is  of  conventional  type  and  architecture,  and  may 
be  identified  by  the  sign  of  a  banking-house  that  pro- 
jects at  right  angles  over  the  sidewalk. 

The  impression  of  one  of  the  many  who  came  in  con- 
tact with  the  personal  Thackeray  and  afterward  wrote 
about  it  was  that  he  spoke  the  most  beautiful  French 
that  the  visitor  had  ever  heard  from  the  lips  of  an 
Englishman.  That  encomium  was  qualified  by  Thack- 
eray himself  when  he  confessed  to  a  foreigner's  limita- 
tions in  judging  the  style  of  George  Sand,  whose  sen- 
tences nevertheless  impressed  him  with  their  charm, 
seeming  to  him  like  "the  sound  of  country  bells — 
provoking  I  don't  know  what  vein  of  musing  and 
meditation,  and  falling  sweetly  and  sadly  on  the  ear." 
Perhaps  French  was  not  quite  a  second  mother  language 
to  him  as  it  was  to  Du  Maurier  and  has  been  to  half  a 
dozen  other  English  men  of  letters.  But  the  Paris  of 
his  day  was  as  familiar  to  him  as  were  his  own  Pall  Mall 
and  Russell  Square;  and  with  that  part  of  him  which 
was  not  wholly  belligerently  British,  he  very  much 
preferred  it  to  the  London  of  fogs  and  of  the  intolerant 
eyes  of  the  Lord  Farintoshes  and  the  Sir  Barnes  New- 
comes, 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS     31 

It  was  not  exactly  Thackeray's  fault  that  his  novels 
were  not  written  from  a  detached  point  of  view.  He 
simply  could  not  help  being  autobiographical.  How 
much  of  himself  he  gave  in  the  making  of  Arthur  Pen- 
dennis  is  a  matter  of  general  knowledge.  The  Paris  of 
his  youth,  and  many  of  his  aspirations  and  heartaches 
are  reflected  ii»  the  pages  of  "The  Adventures  of 
Philip."  The  first  chapter  of  **The  Paris  Sketch  Book" 
is  entitled  "A  Caution  to  Travellers."  The  moral  it 
conveys  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  morals.  The  story  was 
told  two  thousand  years  before  Thackeray.  Ten 
years  ago  one  of  the  cleverest  of  American  tale-spinners 
was  retelHng  it  with  conspicuous  success.  A  hundred 
years  hence,  and  five  hundred  years  hence  the  same 
plot  will  probably  again  be  presented  with  little  or  no 
variation.  It  is  the  innocent  traveller  who  falls  among 
gilded  thieves.  In  the  Thackerayan  version  the  name 
of  the  victim  happened  to  be  Sam  Pogson;  the  fascinat- 
ing lady  called  herself  for  the  time  being  la  Baronne 
Florval-Derval,  and  her  accomplices  were  a  mythical 
baron  and  a  son  of  that  Earl  of  Cinqbars  who  was 
ubiquitous  in  Thackeray's  pages.  And  the  particular 
scene  of  the  fleecing  was  an  apartment  in  the  Rue  Tait- 
bout.  But  the  point  of  the  matter  is  that  the  experience 
was  one  that  Thackeray  in  his  callow  days — and  he 
seems  to  have  had  quite  a  faculty  for  playing  the  fool — 
had  shared  with  others  equally  guileless  and  impres- 
sionable. Even  though  he  never  dropped  his  h'sy  he 
had  been  Sam  Pogson  for  a  day. 

If  ever  there  was  a  book  made  by  a  book  review  it 
was  "Vanity  Fair."    The  first  numbers  dragged,  as 


32        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

"Pickwick"  had  dragged  before  Sam  Weller  came  upon 
the  scene.  The  British  public  was  slow  to  recognize 
that  a  new  star  was  beginning  to  glitter  in  the  literary 
firmament.  Then  came  Abraham  Hayward*s  sweep- 
ing tribute  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  January,  1848; 
and  with  it  the  doors  were  opened,  and  Thackeray 
passed  in  to  take  his  place  among  the  accepted  masters 
of  English  fiction.  In  introducing  the  man,  Hayward 
recalled  finding  him,  ten  or  twelve  years  before,  day  after 
day  engaged  in  the  Louvre  copying  pictures  in  order  to 
qualify  himself  for  his  intended  profession  of  artist.  The 
gallery  of  the  Louvre,  as  much  as  the  Charterhouse, 'or 
Cambridge,  was  a  school  that  played  a  conspicuous 
part  in  Thackeray's  intellectual  development.  It  was 
not  that  there  he  learned  to  draw — he  never  did  that — 
but  there,  under  the  influence  of  the  mighty  dead,  he 
completed  his  education  in  the  humanities. 

It  was  in  July,  1833,  when  he  was  twenty-two  years 
old,  and  acting  as  Paris  correspondent  of  The  Na- 
tional Standard  and  Journal  of  Literature,  Science, 
Music,  Theatricals,  and  the  Fine  Arts — a  little  paper 
first  edited  and  subsequently  purchased  by  him — that 
he  wrote  to  his  mother,  Mrs.  Carmichael  Smyth:  "I 
have  been  thinking  very  seriously  of  turning  artist.  I 
can  draw  better  than  I  can  do  anything  else,  and  cer- 
tainly I  should  like  it  better  than  any  other  occupation, 
so  why  shouldn't  I?'*  In  answer  to  the  question  he 
trudged  off  to  spend  the  pleasant  and  profitable  days 
in  a  room — half  a  mile  long,  with  as  many  windows  as 
Aladdin's  palace — open  from  sunrise  till  evening,  and 
free  to  all  manners  and  varieties  of  study,  where  the 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS    33 

brethren  of  the  brush,  though  they  sleep  perhaps  in  a 
garret,  and  dine  in  a  cellar,  have  a  luxury  which  sur- 
passes all  others,  and  the  enjoyment  of  a  palace  which 
all  the  money  of  all  the  Rothschilds  could  not  buy. 
Thackeray's  first  Paris  was  the  city  he  had  visited  as  a 
wide-eyed  boy.     His  second  Paris  was  the  Louvre. 

Then  came  the  Paris  of  his  marriage  and  his  honey- 
moon. On  August  20,  1836,  he  and  Miss  Isabella 
Gethen  Creagh  Shawe,  a  daughter  of  Colonel  Matthew 
Shawe  of  a  Bengal  regiment,  were  united  in  the  British 
Embassy,  and  went  to  live  in  the  Rue  Neuve  Saint 
Augustin,  hard  by  Terre's  Tavern.  There  is  an  echo 
of  that  period  in  certain  lines  of  the /'Ballad  of^the 
Bouillabaisse": 

Ah  me!  how  quick  the  days  are  flitting! 

I  mind  me  of  a  time  that's  gone, 
When  here  I'd  sit,  as  now  I'm  sitting, 

In  this  same  place — but  not  alone. 
A  fair  young  form  was  nestled  near  me, 

A  dear,  dear  face  looked  fondly  up. 
And  sweetly  spoke  and  smiled  to  cheer  me 

— ^There's  no  one  now  to  share  my  cup. 

No.  For  many  years  there  was  no  one  to  share  his  cup. 

There  is  no  need  to  dwell  at  length  upon  the  tragedy 
of  Thackeray's  brief  married  life,  or  the  long  period 
during  which  he  was  practically  a  widower.  It  was  the 
Paris  of  his  youth  that  was  associated  with  his  first  great 
affair  of  the  heart;  the  Paris  of  his  maturity  played  a 
part  in  his  second  journey  into  the  realm  of  serious 
sentimental  attachment.  For  when  the  lady  in  the 
case  was  exasperatingly  friendly  and  exasperatingly 


34         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

discreet,  it  was  to  Paris  that  the  great  man  repaired, 
there  to  brood  over  his  infatuation,  and  to  write  letters 
in  which  the  tone  changed  abruptly  from  assumed 
lightness  to  violent  recrimination.  Thackeray  seems 
to  have  first  met  Jane  Octavia  Brookfield  about  1839, 
three  years  after  his  marriage,  and  soon  after  the 
separation  enforced  by  Mrs.  Thackeray's  mental 
trouble.  The  husband,  Reverend  William  H.  Brook- 
field,  had  been  known  to  Thackeray  in  the  undergrad- 
uate days  at  Cambridge.  A  chance  meeting  led  to 
Brookfield's  taking  Thackeray  home  unexpectedly  to 
dinner  when  there  happened  to  be  nothing  in  the 
house  but  a  shoulder  of  cold  mutton,  and  the  em- 
barrassed hostess  was  obliged  to  send  a  maid  to  a  neigh- 
bouring pastrycook's  for  a  dozen  tartlets.  The  first 
letter  in  what  is  known  as  the  "Brookfield  correspon- 
ence,"  which  was  kept  so  long  a  mystery  and  finally 
given  to  the  public  early  in  1914,  was  one  written  by 
Thackeray  to  M.  Cazati  in  Paris,  asking  the  latter  to 
do  the  honours  in  the  French  capital  for  Mr.  Brook- 
field.  Some  years  elapsed,  however,  before  the  novel- 
ist's attentions  began  to  cause  comment.  Brookfield 
himself  seems  to  have  been  a  complaisant  husband,  and 
Jane  the  "bread-  and  butter-cutting  Charlotte"  of 
"The  Sorrows  of  Werther";  but  in  1850  the  lady's 
uncle,  Henry  Hallam,  was  moved  to  protest  at  the  fre- 
quency of  Thackeray's  visits.  So  the  greater  part  of 
1850,  Thackeray,  who  about  the  time  was  writing 
"Pendennis,"  spent  in  Paris.  To  indicate  his  affluence 
and  extravagance,  it  is  necessary  merely  to  mention  that 
he  stayed  at  the  Hotel  Bristol,  in  the  Place  Vendome. 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS    35 

From  Paris  he  wrote  often  to  Mrs.  Brookfield,  and 
often  to  others  about  her,  in  the  latter  letters  expressing 
freely  his  unfavourable  opinion  of  the  husband.  It  was 
the  Paris  of  the  presidency  of  Louis  Napoleon,  just  be- 
fore the  coup  d'Haty  and  in  one  letter  he  tells  of  the 
President's  ball  and  the  people  he  met  there: 

When  I  tell  you,  ma'am,  that  there  were  tradesmen  and  their  wives 
present!  I  saw  one  woman  pull  off  a  pair  of  list  slippers  and  take  a 
ticket  for  them  at  the  greatcoat  repository;  and  I  rather  liked  her 
for  being  so  bold.  Confess  now,  would  you  have  the  courage  to  go 
to  court  in  list  slippers  and  ask  the  footman  at  the  door  to  keep  'em 
till  you  came  out?  Well,  there  was  Lady  Castlereagh  looking  un- 
commonly 'andsome,  and  the  Spanish  Ambassador's  wife  blazing 
with  new  diamonds  and  looking  like  a  picture  by  Velasquez,  with 
daring  red  cheeks  and  bright  eyes.  And  there  was  the  Princess 
what-d'you-call-'em,  the  President's  cousin,  covered  with  diamonds 
too,  superb  and  sulky.  .  .  .  The  children  went  to  church  yes- 
terday, and  Minny  sat  next  to  Guizot,  and  Victor  Hugo  was  there — a 
queer  heathen.  Did  you  read  of  his  ordering  his  son  to  fight  a  duel 
the  other  day  with  the  son  of  another  literary  man  ?  Young  Hugo 
wounded  his  adversary  and  I  suppose  his  father  embraced  him  and 
applauded  him — and  goes  to  church  afterwards  as  if  he  was  a  Chris- 
tian. ...  I  am  going  to  Gudin's  to-night,  being  tempted  by 
the  promise  of  meeting  Scribe,  Dumas,  Mery;  and  if  none  of  them 
are  there,  what  am  I  to  do? 

So  much,  in  this  limited  narrative,  for  the  Paris  of 
Thackeray's  life.  There  is  the  Paris  of  his  books. 
Henry  Esmond  went  there  to  plan  the  great  scheme 
that  was  to  restore  the  Stuarts  on  the  English  throne,  a 
gallant  venture  brought  to  naught  by  the  Prince's 
pursuit  of  Beatrix.  That  eighteenth-century  Paris 
was  the  scene  of  various  activities  of  the  Beatrix  of 


36        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

later  years,  the  Baroness  Bernstein  of  **The  Virginians." 
After  Waterloo  the  Rawdon  Crawleys  lived  in  Paris  for 
a  time — little  Rawdon  being  put  out  to  nurse  in  the 
suburbs — and  departing,  left  behind  them  innumerable 
debts.  In  "The  Newcomes,"  from  the  Hotel  de  la 
Terrasse  which  was  on  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  Clive  wrote 
to  his  friend  Pendennis,  telling  of  his  first  walk  in  the 
Tuileries  Gardens,  "with  the  chestnuts  out,  the  statues 
all  shining,  and  all  thewindowsof  the  palace  in  a  blaze," 
and  recording  that  the  Palais  Royal  had  changed  much 
since  Scott's  time.  It  would  hardly  have  been  Thack- 
eray's fist  if  the  Louvre  had  not  been  brought  in  to  play 
an  early  part  in  the  narrative.  There  Clive  fell  in  love 
with  the  most  beautiful  creature  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  "She  was  standing,  silent  and  majestic,  in 
the  centre  of  one  of  the  rooms  of  the  statue  gallery,  and 
the  very  first  glimpse  of  her  struck  one  breathless  with 
the  sense  of  her  beauty,  I  could  not  see  the  colour  of 
her  eyes  and  hair  exactly,  but  the  latter  is  light,  and  the 
eyes,  I  should  think,  are  gray.  She  may  be  some  two 
and  thirty  years  old,  and  she  was  born  about  two  thou- 
sand years  ago.    Her  name  is  the  Venus  of  Milo." 

Then  Clive  and  his  father  went  to  dine  with  the  Vi- 
comte  de  Florae  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  which  was  cer- 
tainly not  where  the  restaurant  of  that  name  is  to  be 
found  to-day;  and  then,  in  a  house  in  the  Rue  Saint-Do- 
minique— ^the  Thackerayan  visitor  of  the  present  Anno 
Domini  may  select  the  edifice  that  best  fits  his  own 
mental  picture — "Tom"  Newcome  again  saw  his 
Leonore  after  all  the  years.  To  Clive's  eyes  that  tender 
and  ceremonious  meeting  was  like  an  elderly  Sir  Charles 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS  37 

Grandison  saluting  a  middle-aged  Miss  Byron.  It  is 
the  most  beautiful  of  all  Thackeray's  love  stories.  Later 
another  love  story  ran  part  of  its  troubled  course  in  the 


RUE   SAINT-DOMINIQUE 

Hotel  de  Florae  and  the  little  garden  behind.  There, 
under  the  kindly  chaperonage  of  the  sweet  French  lady, 
Clive  and  Ethel  were  closer  in  communion  of  heart 
than  ever  before  or  after,  save  possibly  in  that  fable- 
land  at  which  Thackeray  hinted  as  lying  beyond  the 
horizon  of  "Finis."  About  the  Hotel  de  Florae  there 
was  an  American  flavour,  for  when  Clive  first  saw  it, 
the  upper  part  was  rented  to  "Major-General  the  Hon- 
orable Zeno  F.  Pokey,  of  Cincinnati,  U.  S." 

Though  his  metier  was  not  the  melodramatic  school, 
there  are  plenty  of  great  moments  in  Thackeray.  An- 
thony Trollope  held  Lady  Rachel's  disclosure  of  Henry's 
legitimacy  to  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  in  "Esmond" 
to  be  the  greatest  scene  in  English   fiction.    What 


^8         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

reader  can  forget  the  pursuit  of  the  Prince  to  Castle- 
wood,  or  George  Osborne  lying  on  his  face,  ''dead,  with 
a  bullet  through  his  heart,"  or  Becky,  admiring  her 
husband,  **  strong,  brave,  and  victorious"?  Once 
Thackeray  reached  heights  in  a  comic  scene,  in  the  bat- 
tle between  the  Bayneses,  the  Bunches,  and  the  Mac- 
Whirters,  in  the  Champs-Elysees  pension  of  Madame 
Smolensk.  The  "Petit  Chateau  d'Espagne"  was  the 
sonorous  name  of  the  pension  in  question,  and  the  full 
title  of  the  proprietress,  which  Mrs.  Baynes  used  in 
letters  designed  to  impress  her  friends,  was  Madame  la 
Generale  Baronne  de  Smolensk.  But  save  as  indicating 
a  general  type  of  pension  that  flourished  in  the  streets 
adjacent  to  that  part  of  the  Champs-Elysees  that  lies 
about  the  Rond  Point  in  Thackeray's  time,  it  is  prac- 
tically certain  that  the  "Petit  Chateau  d'Espagne" 
was  never  more  than  an  imaginary  structure. 

Closer  to  reality  were  the  bohemian  haunts  of  Philip 
Firmin.  Like  some  of  the  characters  of  Balzac,  Firmin 
was  in  the  habit  of  dining  at  Flicoteau's.  Fhcoteau's 
was  an  actual  restaurant  of  the  Paris  of  1840,  which 
stood  on  ground  now  occupied  by  one  of  the  newer 
buildings  of  the  Sorbonne.  There,  for  an  expenditure 
of  seventeen  sous,  Philip  sat  down  to  the  enjoyment  of 
the  soup,  the  beef,  the  roti,  the  salad,  the  dessert,  and 
the  whitey-brown  bread  at  discretion.  He  would  have 
been  poor  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix;  he  was  wealthy  in  the 
Luxembourg  quarter.  His  habitation  was  the  Hotel 
Poussin,  in  the  Rue  Poussin,  where  there  was  a  little 
painted  wicket  that  opened,  ringing;  and  the  passage 
and  the  stair  led  to  Monsieur  Philippe's  room,  which 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS     39 

was  on  the  first  floor,  as  was  that  of  Bouchard,  the 
painter,  who  had  his  atelier  over  the  way.  Besides 
Bouchard,  who  was  a  bad  painter  but  a  worthy  friend, 
the  Hotel  Poussin  sheltered  Laberge  of  the  second  floor, 
the  poet  from  Carcassonne,  who  pretended  to  be  study- 
ing law  but  whose  heart  was  with  the  Muses,  and  whose 
talk  was  of  Victor  Hugo  and  Alfred  de  Musset;  and  the 
suspiciously  wealthy  Escasse;  and  old  Colonel  Duj arret, 
who  had  been  a  prisoner  of  war  in  England;  and  Tymow- 
ski,  sighing  over  his  Poland.  No  such  street  as  the  Rue 
Poussin  now  exists  in  that  part  of  Paris.  It  debouched, 
according  to  Philip,  into  the  Rue  de  Seine,  which  winds 
in  back  of  the  Institute  of  France  from  the  Quai  Mala- 
quais,  and  runs  to  the  south,  crossing  the  Boulevard 
Saint-Germain.  The  Rue  Visconti,  where  Balzac  had 
the  printing-press  that  ruined  him,  or  the  Rue  des 
Beaux  Arts,  both  little  changed  in  the  course  of  three- 
quarters  of  a  century,  will  give  the  visitor  the  flavour 
of  Philip  Firmin*s  environment.  To  Thackeray  the 
Hotel  Poussin  was  more  than  a  corner  of  the  city  he 
loved  so  well.  It  was  Bohemia;  it  was  the  careless, 
light,  laughing  youth  of  which  he  had  sung  in  his  adap- 
tation from  Beranger's  **Le  Grenier." 

The  little  room  with  pensive  eyes  I  view 

Where  in  my  youth  I  weathered  it  so  long. 
With  a  wild  mistress,  a  staunch  friend  or  two, 

And  a  light  heart  still  breaking  into  song. 
Making  a  mock  of  life  and  all  its  cares. 

Rich  in  the  glory  of  my  rising  sun. 
Lightly  I  vaulted  up  four  pairs  of  stairs. 

In  the  brave  days  when  I  was  twenty-one. 


40        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

France  is  in  "Dombey  and  Son/*  and  it  is  in  *Xittle 
Dorrit.'*  But  for  the  Paris  of  the  fiction  of  Dickens 
the  natural  and  inevitable  turning  is  to  "A  Tale  of  Two 
Cities,"  which  was  first  in  its  author's  mind  as  "One  of 
These  Days/*  then  as  "Buried  AHve/*  then  as  "The 
Thread  of  Gold/'  and  then  as  "The  Doctor  of  Beau- 
vais.'*  "A  Tale  of  Two  Cities/*  which  Andrew  Lang 
held  to  be  one  of  the  three  most  enthralling  stories  ever 
written  (the  other  two  being  **Quentin  Durward"  and 
"Twenty  Years  After"),  and  "Barnaby  Rudge'*  were 
Dickens's  only  ventures  in  the  field  of  the  historical 
novel,  and  the  preparation  of  the  scene,  of  the  former 
especially,  was  a  work  of  great  care  and  elaboration. 
The  Paris  that  he  personally  knew  was  the  city  of  the 
'forties  and  the  'fifties.  To  ensure  topographical 
accuracy  he  spent  days  in  poring  over  old  maps  and  in 
laboriously  consulting  documents,  essays,  and  chron- 
icles. To  Mercier's  "Tableau  de  Paris,*'  which  had 
been  printed  in  Amsterdam,  he  turned  for  the  picture 
of  his  Marquis.  Rousseau  was  his  authority  for  the 
peasant's  shutting  up  his  house  when  he  had  a  bit  of 
meat;  in  the  tax  tables  of  the  period  he  studied  the 
general  wretched  condition  of  the  proletariat  in  the 
years  when  the  storm  of  revolution  was  gathering. 
"These,"  records  Forster,  "are  interesting  intimations 
of  the  care  with  which  Dickens  worked;  and  there  is  no 
instance  in  his  novels,  excepting  this,  of  a  dehberate 
and  planned  departure  from  the  method  of  treatment 
which  had  been  preeminently  the  source  of  his  popu- 
larity as  a  novelist.*'  Also  Carlyle's  "French  Revolu- 
tion" had  recently  appeared,  and  Froude  tells  us  of  the 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS    41 

tremendous  hold  it  took  on  Dickens's  mind.  "He 
carried  a  copy  of  it  with  him  wherever  he  went." 

It  was  the  Saint-Antoine  quarter,  seething  into  revolt, 
that  was  almost  the  protagonist  of  the  early  Paris  chap- 
ters of  the  book.  There,  in  a  street  the  exact  identity 
of  which  is  a  matter  of  no  particular  importance,  was 
the  wineshop  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Defarge.  It  was 
"haggard  Saint-Antoine";  "clamorous  Saint-Antoine"; 
**Saint-Antoine  a  vast  dusky  mass  of  scarecrows  heaving 
to  and  fro";  "Saint-Antoine  shouting  and  dancing  his 
angry  blood  up";  "Saint-Antoine  writing  his  crimes  on 
flaring  sheets  of  paper";  "Saint-Antoine  sleeping  and 
dreaming  of  the  fresh  vengeance  of  the  morrow."  Then 
the  note  changed.  A  new  figure  came  to  replace  Saint- 
Antoine,  a  hideous  figure  that  grew  as  familiar  as  if  it 
had  been  before  the  general  gaze  from  the  foundations 
of  the  world — the  figure  of  the  sharp  female  called  La 
Guillotine.  "It  was  the  popular  theme  for  jests;  it  was 
the  best  cure  for  headache,  it  infallibly  prevented  the 
hair  from  turning  gray,  it  imparted  a  peculiar  delicacy 
to  the  complexion,  it  was  the  national  razor  which 
shaved  close;  who  kissed  La  Guillotine  looked  through 
the  little  window  and  sneezed  into  the  sack." 

But  there  were  material  scenes.  Miss  Press  "threaded 
her  way  along  the  narrow  streets  and  crossed  the  river 
by  the  bridge  of  the  Pont  Neuf";  from  the  Prison  of 
the  Abbaye,  Gabelle  wrote  the  letter  beginning  "Mon- 
sieur heretofore  the  Marquis";  Charles  Darnay,  jour- 
neying from  England  in  response  and  making  his  way 
in  bad  equipages  drawn  by  bad  horses  over  bad  roads, 
was  consigned  to  La  Force.    Tellson*s  Bank  was  in 


42 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


the  Saint-Germain  quarter,  "in  the  wing  of  a  large 
house,  approached  by  a  courtyard  and  shut  off  from 
the  street  by  a  high  wall  and  a  strong  gate";  Alexandre 
Manette  wrote  his  story  while  in  a  doleful  cell  in  the 
Bastille;  part  of  the  Palais  de  Justice  as  we  see  it  to-day 
is  the  Conciergerie,  where  Evremond  awaited  execu- 
tion; it  was  on  a  spot 
which  is  now  part  of 
the  beautiful  Place  de 
la  Concorde  that  Sid- 
ney Carton  made  the 
supreme  sacrifice.  "He 
has  described  London,'* 
wrote  one  of  his  earliest 
critics,  "Hke  a  special 
correspondent  for 
posterity."  The  same 
might  be  said  of  his 
Paris  of  the  sans- 
culottes, and  the 
awakening  of  the 
Greater  Jacquerie. 
Dickens  first  saw  Paris,  to  know  it,  in  November, 
1846.  With  his  family  he  had  left  England  the  end  of 
the  preceding  May,  crossing  to  Belgium,  and  travelling 
by  way  of  the  Rhine  to  Switzerland,  where  a  stay  of 
several  months  was  made.  Then  the  party  made  its 
way  from  Geneva,  journeying  In  three  carriages  and 
stopping  between  six  and  seven  each  evening.  The 
arrival  was  a  day  later  than  expected,  and  the  stop  was 
at  the  Hotel  Brighton  In  the  Rue  de  RIvoli.     Two  years 


THE   CONCIERGERIE 


PARIS  OF  THACKERAY  AND  DICKENS    43 

earlier  Dickens  had  passed  through  the  city  on  his  way 
to  Italy.  This  time  he  was  there  for  a  stay  of  three 
months.  His  first  experience  was  a  "colossal"  walk 
about  the  streets,  half  frightened  by  the  brightness  and 
brilliance,  in  the  course  of  which  his  notice  was  at- 
tracted by  a  book  in  a  shop  window  announced  as  "Les 
Mysteres  de  Londres  par  Sir  Trollopp."  In  frequent 
letters  to  Forster  he  practised  his  French,  which  was 
apparently  very  good,  though  one  suspects  references 
to  the  text-book  or  dictionary  convenient  to  hand. 
Then  Forster  crossed  the  Channel  to  join  him,  and  the 
Parisian  education  began  in  earnest.  Together  they 
passed  through  every  variety  of  sightseeing — prisons, 
palaces,  theatres,  hospitals,  the  Morgue,  the  Saint- 
Lazare  House  of  Detention,  as  well  as  the  Louvre,  Ver- 
sailles, Saint-Cloud,  and  all  the  spots  made  memorable 
by  the  First  Revolution.  The  comedian  Regnier  made 
them  free  of  the  green-room  of  the  Fran9ais.  They 
supped  with  Alexandre  Dumas,  and  with  Eugene  Sue — 
then  at  the  height  of  his  fame — and  met  Theophile 
Gautier  and  Alphonse  Karr.     Forster  relates: 


We  saw  Lamartine  also,  and  had  much  friendly  intercourse  with 
Scribe,  and  with  the  good-natured  Amedee  Pichot.  One  day  we 
visited  in  the  Rue  du  Bac  the  sick  and  ailing  Chateaubriand,  whom 
we  thought  like  Basil  Montagu;  found  ourselves  at  the  other  extreme 
of  opinion  in  the  sculpture-room  of  David  d'Angers;  and  closed  that 
day  at  the  house  of  Victor  Hugo,  by  whom  Dickens  was  received 
with  infinite  courtesy  and  grace.  The  great  writer  then  occupied  a 
floor  in  a  noble  corner  house  in  the  Place  Royale,  the  old  quarter  of 
Ninon  I'Enclos,  and  the  people  of  the  Regency.  ...  I  never 
saw  upon  any  features  so  keenly  intellectual  such  a  soft  and  sweet 


44        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

gentility,  and  certainly  never  heard  the  French  language  spoken 
with  the  picturesque  distinctness  given  to  it  by  Victor  Hugo. 

Even  more  pronounced  in  literary  flavour  was  Dick- 
ens's second  Paris  residence  of  1855-56.  Then  his 
social  life  was  passed  almost  exclusively  among  writers, 
painters,  actors,  and  musicians.  His  apartment  was  in 
the  Avenue  des  Champs-Elysees,  within  a  door  or  two  of 
the  Jardin  d'Hiver.  The  painter,  Ary  SchefFer,  brought 
many  distinguished  Frenchmen  there.  Besides,  he  had 
the  society  of  fellow  craftsmen  of  his  own  nation.  Wilkiei 
Collins  was  in  Paris,  and  the  Brownings,  and  Thackeray 
(the  estrangement  between  the  two  men  over  the 
Yates-Garrick  Club  case  had  not  yet  taken  place)  ran 
over  from  London  to  pay  visits  to  his  daughters,  who, 
like  the  DIckenses,  were  living  In  the  Champs-Elysees. 
At  Scribe's  table  Dickens  dined  frequently,  and  found 
the  dinners  and  the  company  to  his  liking.  At  the 
house  of  Madame  Vlardot,  the  sister  of  Malibran,  he 
met  George  Sand,  and  was  not  greatly  impressed.  In 
his  honour  Emile  de  GIrardIn  gave  two  banquets  the 
descriptions  of  which  read  like  pages  from  the  "Arabian 
Nights"  or  from  Dumas*s"The  Count  of  Monte-Crlsto." 
This  life  ended  late  In  April,  1856,  when  Dickens  re- 
turned to  London.  In  January,  1863,  he  visited  Paris 
for  the  last  time  for  the  purpose  of  reading  at  the 
Embassy  in  behalf  of  the  British  Charitable  Fund. 


IV.  THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  MUSKETEERS  AND 
OTHERS 

The  Personal  Alexandre  Dumas — The  *' Novel  Manufactory" 
— From  Villers-Cotterets  to  Paris — Early  Paris  Homes — The 
Chateau  of  Monte  Cristo — Dumas* s  Death  at  Dieppe — The  City 
of  the  Valois — The  Streets  of  the  Musketeers. 

r\  A  recent  letter  to  the  present  Pilgrim,  discussing 
certain  Paris  associations  and  memories,  an  Ameri- 
can novelist  spoke  of  a  residence  he  had  once  oc- 
cupied for  many  months  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon.  As  a 
short  cut  to  the  identification  of  the  general  neighbour- 
hood he  wrote:  "You  know,  it  was  just  round  the 
corner  from  the  places  where  Aramis  and  Company 
used  to  hang  out.'*  It  would  have  been  difficult  to  have 
found  a  line  of  description  more  illuminating.  For 
amazing  as  it  may  at  first  glance  seem,  the  trail  of 
"Aramis  et  Cie.'*,  as  Mr.  Booth  Tarkington  rather 
oddly  called  them,  a  trail  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
is  far  easier  to  follow  than  the  trails  of  the  men  and 
women  of  fiction  who  lived  in  the  Paris  of  1830,  or  even 
of  i860.  But  before  taking  up  the  subject  of  the  city 
of  the  astonishing  and  delightful  Messieurs  Athos, 
Porthos,  Aramis,  and  d'Artagnan  of  "Les  Trois  Mous- 
quetaires,"  "Vingt  Ans  Apres,"  and  "Le  Vicomte  de 
Bragelonne,"  there  should  be  a  consideration  of  the 

45 


46        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Paris  and  the  personality  of  their  equally  astonishing 
though  not  always  equally  delightful  creator. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  understand  Alexandre 
Dumas  the  Elder  is  to  pick  out  from  the  thousand  and 
one  stories  told  of  him  those  that  seem  least  likely  to  be 
true.  Add  to  these  twenty  or  thirty  of  the  best  witti- 
cisms at  his  expense,  including  those  of  the  son  who  at 
once  adored  and  deplored  him,  and  season  the  impres- 
sion with  a  glance  at  a  dozen  of  the  cartoons  depicting 
his  thick  lips  and  woolly  pate.  Finally  throw  in  a  bit 
of  Monte  Cristo,  a  suggestion  of  d'Artagnan  and  Por- 
thos,  something  of  Chicot  the  Jester,  and  a  good  deal 
of  that  arch  humbug,  Joseph  Balsamo,  alias  Cagliostro. 
The  result  will  probably  be  a  kind  of  Arabian  Nights 
figure  at  large  in  the  modern  western  world,  but  it  is  to 
the  atmosphere  of  Aladdin  and  his  Lamp,  and  Ali-Baba, 
and  the  Young  King  of  the  Black  Isles  that  we  turn 
for  the  full  flavour  of  the  grandson  of  the  St.  Domingo 
negress,  Marie  Cessette  Dumas,  the  son  of  the  *'Hora- 
tius  Codes  of  the  Tyrol,"  and  the  father  of  the  rather 
austere  moralist  of  "Le  Demi  Monde." 

"My  father  is  a  big  baby,"  once  said  Alexandre  ^/j; 
"he  is  so  vain  that  he  would  climb  up  on  the  back  of  his 
own  coach  in  order  that  people  might  think  that  he  kept 
a  negro  footman.  He  is  a  great  devil  of  all  the  vani- 
ties." Like  Edmond  Dantes  in  the  plenitude  of  power 
he  flung  his  money  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven;  in  his 
chateau  of  "Monte-Cristo"  the  table  was  always  set 
for  an  army  of  shady  sycophants,  but  unlike  Dantes, 
who  was  forever  discharging  not  only  his  own  debts 
but  those  of  others,  Dumas  was  ever  a  thorn  in  the  side 


TRAIL  OF  MUSKETEERS  AND  OTHERS    47 

of  the  trusting  tradesman.  To  get  the  money  to  fling 
broadcast  he  would  sign  any  contract,  undertake  any 
task.  His  employment  of  a  small  army  of  collaborators 
to  help  write  the  books  to  which  he  appended  his  name — 
his  "Novel  Manufactury:  House  of  Alexandre  Dumas 
and  Company'* — may  perhaps  be  extenuated.  His 
aides,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Maquet,  were  never 
able  to  do  anything  by  themselves,  and,  to  quote  Thack- 
eray: "Does  not  the  chief  cook  have  aides  under  him.'' 
Did  not  Rubens's  pupils  paint  on  his  canvases  .f*  Had 
not  Lawrence  assistants  for  his  backgrounds.''"  But 
in  later  life  he  resorted  to  expedients  which  permit  of 
no  apology.  Signing  up  for  a  series  of  articles  on  snakes, 
and  collecting  payment  in  advance,  he  would  fulfill  his 
part  of  the  contract  by  writing:  "We  now  come  to  the 
boa-constrictor.  Let  us  consider  what  my  learned 
friend  Dr.  So-and-So  has  to  say."  Then  four  pages 
copied,  verhatiniy  from  an  encyclopedia,  and  the  con- 
cluding original  lines:  "In  our  next  paper  we  shall 
take  up  that  interesting  little  creature,  the  asp."  To 
that  depth  he  was  willing  to  descend  for  money.  To 
attract  attention  to  himself  when  interest  was  on  the 
wane  he  played  a  fiddle  in  the  windows  of  boulevard 
cafes.  Our  judgments  scorn  him;  our  hearts  continue 
to  love  him  as  they  love  his  creations. 

A  few  years  ago  allusion  to  Dumas*s  birthplace  at 
Villers-Cotterets  (he  was  bom  July  24, 1802),  would  have 
had  little  meaning.  Now  the  fact  that  the  town  is  a 
close  neighbour  of  Chateau-Thierry  gives  a  new  signifi- 
cance. From  Villers-Cotterets,  in '1823,  Dumas  took 
coach  for  Paris  and  his  first  home  in  the  city  was  at 


48 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


No.  9  Rue  de  Bouloi,  a  still-existing  street  not  far  from 
the  Palais  Royal,  Thence  he  soon  removed  to  the 
near-by  Rue  Herold,  then  known  as  the  Rue  des  Vieux- 
Augustins,  incidentally  a  street  in  which  Thackeray 
and  his  young  bride  went  to  live  just  after  their  mar- 
riage. Dumas's  next  residence  was  in  the  present 
Place  Boieldieu,  directly  back  of  the  Opera  Comique, 

and  after  that  he  lived, 
with  his  mother,  on 
the  second  floor  of  No. 
53  Rue  du  Faubourg 
Saint-Denis,  next  door 
to  the  old  cabaret,  "Au 
Lion  d'Argent."  Then 
for  the  nine  years  from 
1824  to  1833  he  was  on 
the  south  bank,  at 
No.  25  Rue  de  I'Uni- 
versite,  on  the  south- 
eastern corner  of  the 
Rue  du  Bac.  That  was  the  period  of  the  Dumas 
in  which  we  are  least  interested,  the  Dumas  of  the 
theatre,  of  ''Henri  III,"  "Christine,"  and  "Anthony." 
The  great  romances  "Monte-Cristo"  and  "Les  Trois 
Mousquetaires"  were  written  at  No.  22  Rue  de  RivoH 
(which  number  was  then  between  the  Rue  des  Pyramides 
and  the  Rue  Saint-Roch  close  to  the  Jeanne  d'Arc 
statue),  at  No.  109  Rue  de  Richelieu,  and  No.  45  Rue 
de  la  Chaussee  d'Antin. 

Then,  from  1847  to  1854,  the  Monte-Cristo  period, 
Dumas  had  rented  a  villa  at  Saint-Germain,  and,  find- 


MEUNG.      WHERE    D  ARTAGNAN    FIRST   AP- 
PEARED UPON  THE   SCENE  OF  FICTION 


,  TRAIL  OF  MUSKETEERS  AND  OTHERS    49 

ing  the  countryside  to  his  liking,  decided  to  erect  a 
chateau  according  to  his  own  ideas.  "Dumas's  Folly" 
was  what  it  was  called,  though  everyone  was  anxious 
to  see  it  and  to  enjoy  its  hospitality.  Five  or  six  hun- 
dred guests  went  from  Paris  to  share  in  the  housewarm- 
Ing,  and  to  be  afterward  entertained  in  the  Saint-Ger- 
main theatre  with  the  improvised  play,  "Shakepeare  et 
Dumas.'*  The  chateau  consisted  of  a  ground  floor 
and  two  upper  ones,  and  was  surrounded  by  a  stone 
balcony.  There  was  a  frieze  formed  by  a  series  of  me- 
dallions, each  representing  some  famous  author,  be- 
ginning with  Homer  and  ending  with  Victor  Hugo. 
"I  don't  see  you  among  them.  Monsieur  Dumas," 
said  a  visitor.  "Oh,  I  shall  be  inside,'*  was  the  reply. 
Over  the  front  door  of  "  Monte-Cristo  "  were  the  Dumas 
arms  with  his  motto:  J'aime  qui  m'aimey  which  may  be 
roughly  and  yet  appropriately  translated  by  the  ribald 
chorus : 

I  don't  give  give  a  damn  for  any  damn  man 
Who  don't  give  a  damn  for  me. 

To  "Monte-Cristo"  repaired  a  swarm  of  adventurers, 
male  and  female.  It  was  necessary  only  to  express 
admiration  of  this  novel  or  that  to  win  an  invitation 
to  dine  and  spend  the  night.  Once  installed,  the  flat-, 
terer  was  hard  to  dislodge.  Dumas,  in  his  good  nature, 
usually  invented  the  excuse  that  explained  the  pro- 
longed stay.  There  was  the  typical  case  of  the  "ther- 
mometer man."  That  was  the  person  for  whom  the 
novelist,  to  avoid  turning  him  adrift,  invented  the  duty 
of  going  every  day  to  find  what  the  thermometer  regis- 


50  IHE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

tered.  "I  assure  you,  my  dear  fellow,  that  you  will 
be  doing  me  a  very  great  service:  there  is  an  intimate 
connection  between  theatrical  receipts  and  the  condi- 
tion of  the  atmosphere,  and  it  is  most  important  for  me 
to  be  well  informed  on  this  point."  From  "Monte 
Cristo"  Dumas  could  no  more  turn  away  an  animal 
than  he  could  a  man.  There  were  vultures,  apes, 
parrots,  pheasants,  and  a  varied  assortment  of  fowls. 
Above  all  there  were  dogs.  Finally  the  number  of  the 
dogs  reached  thirteen,  which  Dumas  considered  un- 
lucky. His  servant  suggested  turning  away  one.  "No, 
Michel,  bring  in  another;  that  will  make  fourteen." 

But  women  naturally  made  the  most  of  the  lavish 
hospitality.  The  chateau  was  ruled  by  a  succession 
of  fair  chdtelaineSy  mostly  of  the  theatrical  profession. 
When  one  of  them  departed  from  "Monte  Cristo"  she 
usually  took  the  best  of  the  furniture  as  a  souvenir  of  her 
stay.  Consequently  there  was  need  of  continual  replen- 
ishment. Dumas  was  not  blind  to  the  situation.  Some- 
times he  would  be  working  in  his  kiosque  at  the  novel 
on  hand,  and  would  be  disturbed  by  the  shouting  of 
those  who  were  gathered  round  his  bountiful  table. 
Then  he  would  grumble  a  little.  "I  don't  say  that  it 
does  not  give  me  pleasure  to  write  my  novels,  but  it  is 
not  quite  the  same  pleasure  as  that  of  my  friends  who 
do  not  write  them."  Again  he  said:  "Hereafter  men 
will  describe  me  as  a  panier  perccy  as  they  will  perhaps 
forget  that  it  was  not  always  I  who  made  the  hole  in  the 
basket."  Yet  when,  during  one  of  his  absences,  the 
actress  who  was  for  the  time  being  installed  as  chate- 
laine wrote  frantically  asking  him  what  was  to  be  done 


TRAIL  OF  MUSKETEERS  AND  OTHERS    51 

about  the  servants'  wine,  saying:  "There  is  no  more 
vin  ordinaire  left  in  the  cellars — nothing,  in  fact,  but 
champagne,"  his  reply  was:  "Let  them  have  the  cham- 
pagne; it  will  do  them  good." 

Even  his  extraordinary  earnings — fifty  thousand 
dollars  a  year  is  a  conservative  estimate  of  the  average 
of  the  'forties,  when  the  purchasing  power  of  both  franc 
and  dollar  were  far  higher  than  now — could  not  support 
this  existence  forever.  In  1854  he  disappeared  into 
Belgium,  taking  up  his  residence  in  the  Boulevard  Wat- 
erloo in  Brussels.  He  returned  to  Paris  in  1856  and 
for  ten  years  lived  at  No.  jy  Rue  d'Amsterdam.  From 
1866  till  1870  his  residence  was  at  No.  107  Boulevard 
Malesherbes.  Then  came  the  war,  the  defeat,  and  the 
march  of  the  Prussians  on  Paris.  In  the  middle  of 
September  it  was  found  necessary  to  move  him  out  of 
harm's  way.  Weak  and  ailing  he  was  taken  to  the 
house  that  his  son  had  erected  at  Puys,  on  the  Norman 
coast,  near  Dieppe.  There  he  died  on  the  5th  of  De- 
cember, 1870. 

There  are  naturally  as  many  Parises  in  the  novels  of 
Dumas  as  there  were  distinct  periods  of  French  history 
which,  to  use  his  own  words,  he  tried  to  elevate  to  the 
dignity  of  romance.  It  is  enough  here  to  consider  three : 
the  Paris  of  the  Valois;  the  Paris  of  the  Musketeers, 
which  means  the  city  from  1625  to  1660;  and  the  Paris 
of  "Monte  Cristo,"  which  belonged  to  the  early  half 
of  the  last  century.  Indeed,  as  "Monte  Cristo"  is  to 
be  considered  first  of  all  as  a  story  of  Marseilles,  atten- 
tion here  may  be  confined  entirely  to  the  city  that 
knew  Chicot,  and  the  city  that  knew  d'Artagnan.    Very 


52         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

little  of  Valois  Paris  is  left  to-day,  but  here  and  there 
the  searcher  is  able  to  find  monuments  and  bits  of  old 
streets  that  recall  the  scenery  familiar  to  the  Reine 
Margot,  to  Bussy-d'Amboise,  and  the  Forty-five 
Guardsmen. 

The  Valois  triology  begins  with  the  marriage  of  Mar- 
guerite de  France  and  the  Bearnais,  Henri  de  Navarre. 
The  religious  ceremony  was  performed  under  the  grand 
portal  of  Notre  Dame,  for  Henri's  heresy  forbade  his 
marriage  within.  Then  followed  the  festivities  in  the 
old  Louvre.  "There  is  no  change  in  these  walls,"  said 
Benjamin  Ellis  Martin,  "since  that  day,  except  that  a 
vaulted  ceiling  took  the  place,  in  1806,  of  the  original 
oaken  beams,  which  had  served  for  rare  hangings,  not  of 
tapestries,  but  of  men.  The  long  corridors  and  square 
rooms  above,  peopled  peaceably  by  pictures  now,  echoed 
to  the  rushing  of  frightened  feet  on  the  night  of  Saint- 
Bartholomew,  when  Margot  saved  the  life  of  her  hus-^ 
band  that  was  and  of  her  lover  that  was  to  be.  Hidden 
within  the  massive  walls  of  Philippe-Auguste*s  building 
is  a  spiral  staircase  of  his  time  connecting  the  Salle  des 
Sept  Cheminees  with  the  floor  below,  and  beneath  that 
with  the  cumbrous  underground  portions  of  his  old 
Louvre.  As  one  gropes  down  the  worn  steps,  around 
the  sharp  turns  deep  below  the  surface,  visions  appear 
of  Valois  conspiracy  and  of  the  intrigues  of  the  Floren- 
tine queen-mother." 

Perhaps  best  remembered  of  all  the  splendid  scenes 
of  the  Valois  triology  are  the  duel  between  the  mignons 
of  the  King  and  the  followers  of  the  Duke  of  Guise  and 
the  great  fight  for  life  made  by  Bussy-d'Amboise  against 


TRAIL  OF  MUSKETEERS  AND  OTHERS     53 

the  assassins  of  the  Comte  de  Monsoreau.  Both  those 
episodes  Dumas  drew  from  the  pages  of  Brantome, 
telHng  the  story  much  more  dramatically  than  Bran- 
tome  told  it.  Let  the  traveller  of  to-day  take  his  stand 
before  the  Victor  Hugo  house  in  the  Place  des  Vosges 
and  he  will  be  almost  on  the  exact  spot  where,  on  Sun- 
day, April  27,  1578,  took  place  the  conflict  from  which 
Antraguet  alone  survived,  while  Quelus,  Schomberg, 
Livarot,  Ribeirac,  and  Maugiron  either  perished  on  the 
ground  or "  died  from  wounds.  Quelus,  the  King's 
favourite,  pierced  by  nineteen  wounds,  lingered  for  a 
month  in  Hotel  de  Boissy,  in  the  near-by  Rue  Saint- 
Antoine,  which  the  King  had  closed  with  chains  against 
traffic.  The  irreverent  Parisians,  alluding  to  the  King's 
grief,  suggested  that  the  Pont  Neuf,  of  which  the  foun- 
dations had  just  been  laid,  should  be  called  the  "Bridge 
of  Tears."  Also  in  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine,  at  the  cor- 
ner of  what  is  now  the  Rue  Sevigne,  which  begins  al- 
most opposite  the  Lycee  Charlemagne,  was  the  town 
house  of  the  Comte  de  Monsoreau.  To  this  house, 
says  Brantome,  Bussy  d'Amboise,  done  with  Margot, 
was  lured  by  a  note  written  by  the  countess,  under  her 
husband's  orders  and  eyes,  giving  her  lover,  Bussy,  his 
usual  rendezvous  during  the  count's  absence.  This 
time  the  count  was  at  home,  with  a  group  of  his  armed 
men,  and  there,  on  the  night  of  August  19,  1579,  the 
gallant  was  duly  and  thoroughly  done  to  death.  In 
the  pages  of  Dumas  the  duel  followed  the  assassination 
by  a  few  hours;  historically  the  duel  preceded  the  kill- 
ing of  Bussy  by  almost  sixteen  months.  Two  inns 
likely  to  be  recalled  by  readers  of  the  Valois  trilogy 


54         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

were  the  "Corne  d'Abondance,"  the  scene  of  some  of 
Chicot's  memorable  exploits,  which  was  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Jacques,  on  the  south  side  of  the  river;  and  the 
"Sword  of  the  Brave  ChevaHer,"  the  meeting  place  of 
the  Forty  Five,  in  the  Rue  de  Bussy,  now  the  Rue  de 
Buci,  near  the  modern  Boulevard  Saint-Germain. 

But  after  all  Chicot  is  not  quite  D'Artagnan,  nor  is 
"Marguerite  de  Valois"  "Les  Trois  Mousquetaires." 
So  back  to  the  old  quarter  hard  by  the  Luxembourg 
and  the  trail  with  which  this  chapter  began.  It  was  in 
1625  that  the  youthful  Gascon  entered  Paris  astride  his 
orange-coloured  horse  Rosinante.  Then  the  Luxem- 
bourg Palace  was  a  comparatively  new  structure,  having 
been  begun  in  161 5  and  finished  in  1620.  D'Artag- 
nan's  grip  on  his  sword  hilt  was  justified  by  the  condi- 
tions of  life  in  the  Paris  which  he  had  invaded  and  was 
determined  to  conquer.  RicheHeu  had  done  something 
to  improve  matters,  but  the  city  was  still  internally 
chaotic.  Most  of  the  streets  were  unpaved.  Great 
stones  obstructed  the  thoroughfares.  There  was  little 
sewerage,  and  huge  puddles,  breeding  disease  and  exhal- 
ing fetid  odours,  remained  in  the  gutters  weeks  after  a 
rain.  The  streets  were  unlighted.  People  abroad  at 
night  carried  lanterns,  but  these  flitting  and  flickering 
lights  failed  to  awe  the  robbers,  who  flourished  in  great 
numbers,  often  boldly  carrying  on  their  rascalities  in 
broad  daylight.  As  lawless  as  the  highwaymen  were 
the  pages  and  lackeys,  who  spent  their  nights  in  in- 
sulting passersby,  carrying  off  young  girls,  fighting  the 
watch,  and  knocking  in  the  doors  of  shops.  Parlia- 
ment was  virtually  powerless.     Highway  robbery  was 


TRAIL  OF  MUSKETEERS  AND  OTHERS    55 

so  common  that  the  witnesses  of  a  theft  amused  them- 
selves by  laughing  at  the  expense  of  the  victim  without 
attempting  to  prevent  its  commission.  Assassins  plied 
their  vocations  in  the  public  squares  and  markets.  The 
administration  of  justice  was  primitive  and  a  long  rapier 
more  imposing  than  any  number  of  legal  documents. 
To  inspire  deference  one  had  to  be  either  a  great  noble- 
man or  a  man  of  arms.  Imagine  that  old  city  and  then 
start  at  the  Luxembourg,  always  bearing  in  mind  the 
important  fact  that  there  was  then  no  broad  Boulevard 
Saint-Michel,  and  that  travel  between  the  Palace  and 
the  river  was  by  means  of  the  winding  Rue  de  la  Harpe, 
of  which  a  bit  still  remains. 

The  Luxembourg  Palace  fronts  on  the  Rue  Vaugir- 
ard,  the  longest  street  in  Paris.  It  is  the  starting  point 
of  the  trail  of  the  Musketeers  as  we  knew  them  in  the 
first  book.  The  apartment  of  Aramis  was  in  that  street, 
just  east  of  the  Rue  de  Cassette.  It  was  on  the  ground 
floor,  discreetly  easy  of  entrance  and  of  exit,  and  its 
windows  looked  out  on  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  op- 
posite. The  site  is  as  easy  to  find  as  Battery  Park  or 
Boston  Common.  Athos  lived  in  the  Rue  Ferou,  within 
two  steps  of  the  Luxembourg.  The  paving  and  style 
of  architecture  may  have  changed,  but  it  is  still  the  Rue 
Ferou,  and  runs  from  the  Rue  Vaugirard  to  the  Place 
Saint-Sulpice.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Place  Saint- 
Sulpice  is  the  Rue  du  Vieux  Colombier  where  Porthos 
had  his  pretended  residence,  an  apartment  of  much 
elegance  according  to  his  story,  but  to  which  none  of  his 
friends  had  ever  been  invited.  D'Artagnan's  first  home 
in  Paris  was  in  what  was  then  the  Rue  des  Fossoyeurs. 


56         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

It  is  now  the  Rue  Servandoni,  and  is  the  next  parallel 
street  to  the  east  of  the  Rue  Ferou,  the  two  thorough- 
fares being  still  joined  by  the  curious  little  Rue  du 
Canivet.  It  was  close  by  the  home  of  Aramis  that  took 
place  the  duel  surpassing  even  that  of  **La  Dame 
de  Monsoreau,"  that  encounter  in  which  D'Artagnan 
threw  in  his  lot  with  Athos,  Porthos,  and  Aramis,  about 
to  engage  the  Cardinal's  Guards,  led  by  the  redoubt- 
able Jussac. 

In  the  third  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne  was  far  beyond  the  city  walls.  Else- 
where to  be  discussed  is  the  trail  of  the  Musketeers  out- 
side of  Paris.  But  after  the  return  from  England  with 
the  diamond  necklace  the  young  Gascon  repaired,  in 
obedience  to  the  letter  from  Constance  Bonacieux,  to 
the  pavilion  at  Saint-Cloud,  leaving  the  city  by  the 
Porte  de  la  Conference,  and  riding  through  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne.  The  pavilion,  under  which  D'Artagnan 
watched  through  the  night,  was  destroyed  by  the  Prus- 
sians during  the  siege  of  Paris.  The  home  of  Porthos's 
"Duchess"  was  in  the  Rue  aux  Ours.  What  remains 
of  that  street,  retaining  the  same  name,  is  to  be  found 
not  far  from  where  the  Boulevard  de  Sebastopol  is  dia- 
gonally crossed  by  the  Rue  de  Turbigo.  It  was  there 
that  Porthos,  seeking  to  solve  the  problem  of  his  equip- 
ment, went  to  dine  with  Madame  Coquenard,  her  hus- 
band, and  the  ravenous  clerks.  The  studies  of  old  Paris 
of  M.  Franklin  throw  additional  light  on  the  humours  of 
the  feast.  Forks,  which  came  into  usage  among  the 
nobility  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
did  not  find  their  way  into  the  households  of  the  bour" 


TRAIL  OF  MUSKETEERS  AND  OTHERS  57 

geoisie  until  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth,  so  the  huge 
and  fastidious  Musketeer  was  reduced  to  employing  his 
fingers  in  gobbling  down  the  distasteful  repast. 

Dumas  may  have  occasionally  played  "ducks  and 
drakes"  with  history.  But  in  the  study  of  his  settings 
he  exercised  a  care  and  pursuit  of  accuracy  with  which 
he  is  seldom  credited.  It  might  be  supposed  that  a 
man  of  his  abounding  imagination  would  trouble  himself 
little  about  documentary  research  or  local  colour  at 
first  hand.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  a  passion  for 
investigating  the  places  with  which  his  books  were  con- 
cerned. *'I  cannot,"  he  said,  "make  either  a  book  or  a 
play  on  locahties  I  have  not  seen."  For  "Monte 
Cristo,"  not  only  the  island  itself,  but  Marseilles  and  the 
Chateau  d'lf  had  to  be  revisited.  "Les  Trois  Mous- 
quetaires"  involved  going  to  Boulogne  and  Bethune. 
The  background  of  the  first  incarnation  was  the  Latin 
Quarter  section,  especially  the  streets  between  the 
Luxembourg  and  the  Place  Saint-Sulpice.  The  trail 
often  carried  beyond  the  river,  such  as  when  the  ad- 
venture which  D'Artagnan  regretted  to  the  end  of  his 
life,  the  trick  played  on  Milady,  led  him  to  the  structure 
in  the  Place  Royale,  now  the  Place  des  Vosges,  in  which 
Victor  Hugo  was  to  live,  and  Dumas  to  visit  more  than 
two  hundred  years  later;  there  was  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Harpe  the  ceaseless  clatter  of  troopers  riding  between 
the  Luxembourg  and  the  Louvre;  but  to  be  in  the  heart 
of  the  land  of  "The  Three  Musketeers"  one  does  not 
have  to  travel  very  far  away  from  a  comfortable  table 
at  Foyot's. 

Between  1625  and  1645  the  scene  of  action  in  Paris 


58 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


changed,  moving  from  the  south  bank  of  the  Seine  to  the 
north.  D'Artagnan,  travelhng  with  the  current  of 
life,  found  lodgings  in  the  "Auberge  de  la  Chevrette" 

kept  by  the  pretty 
Flemish  Madeleine  in 
the  Rue  Tiquetonne. 
It  is  the  Rue  Tique- 
tonne to-day,  arching 
from  the  Rue  Mont- 
martre  to  the  Rue  de 
Turbigo,  and  there  was, 
until  a  short  time  ago 
at  least,  a  certain  Hotel 
de  Picardie,  which  car- 
ried with  it  a  suggestion 
of  the  astute  and  pros- 
perous Planchet.  As 
lieutenant  of  the  King's 
Musketeers  D'Artag- 
nan's  activities  called 
for  a  residence  in  this 
part  of  the  city.  The  action  of  "Vingt  Ans  Apres" 
begins  in  the  Palais  Royal,  which  was  then  known 
as  the  Palais  Cardinal.  It  sweeps  up  and  down  the 
Rue  Saint-Honore,  and  takes  d'Artagnan  to  the 
Bastille  there  to  release  temporarily  the  Count  de 
Rochefort,  his  evil  genius  of  the  early  days.  Starting 
the  search  for  Aramis  the  Gascon  wisely  looks  first  for 
Bazin  and  finds  that  worthy  acting  in  the  capacity  of 
beadle  in  Notre  Dame.  In  the  Rue  des  Lombards, 
which  in  the  seventeenth  century  was  invaded  by  the 


D  ARTAGNAN  S  LODGING 


TRAIL  OF  MUSKETEERS  AND  OTHERS    59 

grocers  and  spice  dealers  who  hold  it  to  the  present  day, 
Planchet  was  growing  rich  and  Hving  over  his  shop  at 
the  sign  of  *'Le  Pilon  d'Or."  The  favourite  duelling 
place  was  no  longer  the  point  by  the  Luxembourg  gar- 
dens where  met  the  Rue  Vaugirard  and  the  Rue  Cas- 
sette. It  had  shifted  to  the  Place  Royale  of  an  earlier 
century.  There,  with  anguished  mistrust  in  their 
hearts,  Athos  and  Aramis  of  the  party  of  the  Fronde, 
and  Porthos  and  D'Artagnan  of  the  side  of  theQueen  and 
the  Cardinal,  met  to  come  to  a  definite  understanding. 
The  ties  of  the  glorious  past  of  their  youth  were  too 
strong.  When  they  parted  they  had  adopted  forever 
the  motto  "One  for  all,  and  all  for  one.'*  Enough  of 
the  city  of  the  Musketeers.  But  the  trail  is  not  to  end 
there.  In  another  chapter,  to  paraphrase  Stevenson, 
we  shall  say:  "Come,  D'Artagnan,  once  again  we  shall 
ride  together  to  Belle-Isle  1" 


V.  THE  PARIS  OF  HONORS  DE  BALZAC 

The  Paris  of  Opening  Paragraphs — The  Rue  Lesdiguieres — 
The  Happily  Forgotten  Novels — Balzac  as  Law  Student  and 
Publisher — In  the  Rue  Visconti — The  Secret  of  Achievement — 
The  "Hotel  des  Haricots" — The  Hidden  Chambers — " Les 
Jardies" — The  "Maison  Fauquer" — The  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain — The  Rue  du  Doyenne — the  Haunts  of  Cesar  Birotteau. 

IF  ALL  copies,  in  all  languages,  of  all  the  books  of 
the  "Comedie  Humaine"  were  to  be  deleted  of 
everything  but  the  opening  paragraphs,  there 
would  still  remain  a  Paris  of  Balzac  worthy  of  serious 
consideration  and  study.  For  so  closely  was  narrative 
woven  into  the  very  fibre  of  Paris  that  the  logical  way 
of  beginning  was  by  the  setting  of  the  definite  scene. 
To  illustrate  by  reference  to  certain  of  the  most  widely 
known  books:  In  *'Le  Pere  Goriot,"  the  first  sentence 
r  informs  us  that  **Mme.  Vauquer  {nee  de  Conflans) 
had  for  forty  years  kept  a  pension  bourgeoise  in  the  Rue 
Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve,  between  the  Latin  Quarter 
and  the  Faubourg  Saint-Marcel.'*  "La  Peau  de 
Chagrin"  plunges  the  reader  at  once  with  Raphael 
into  the  Palais  Royal  and  the  gambling  den  where  he 
staked  and  lost.  "Le  Cousin  Pons"  is  first  presented 
walking  along  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens,  "with  his 
head  bent  down,  as  if  tracking  someone."  The  Rue 
Saint-Honore,  near  the  Place  Vendome,  is  the  opening 

60 


,  THE  PARIS  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC    6i 

note  of  "The  Rise  and  Fall  of  Cesar  Birotteau.'*  The 
pompous  Crevel,  in  the  uniform  of  a  captain  of  the 
National  Guard,  is  being  driven  down  the  Rue  de 
rUniversite  as  the  curtain  rises  for  "La  Cousine  Bette." 
Nor  are  these  chance  streets  and  neighbourhoods.  Just 
one  hundred  years  have  passed  since  November,  1819, 
when  the  story  of  "Le  Pere  Goriot"  began,  yet  if  the 
American  visitor  in  Paris  will  seek  out  the  Rue  Neuve- 
Sainte-Genevieve,  now  the  Rue  Tournefort,  and  pass 
through  the  gateway  of  No.  24,  he  will  realize  that  no 
other  spot  on  earth  could  have  served  as  the  setting  for 
the  drama  involving  the  French  Lear,  and  the  evil 
schemes  of  Vautrin,  alias  **Trompe-la-mort." 

To  begin  this  survey  of  Balzac's  Paris  with  a  note 
imitative  of  the  Balzac  note,  turn  to  the  novelist's  first 
attic,  which  was  at  the  top  of  the  old  house  No.  9  Rue 
Lesdiguieres.  The  Rue  Lesdiguieres  still  exists.  It  is 
near  the  Place  de  la  Bastille,  and  runs  from  the  Rue 
Saint-Antoine  to  the  Rue  de  la  Cerisaie,  crossing  the 
Boulevard  Henri  IV  on  the  way.  But  the  house  is  gone; 
demolished  in  1866  to  make  way  for  the  spacious  avenue 
that  sweeps  across  an  end  of  the  Isle  Saint-Louis  and 
serves  as  the  connecting  link  between  the  boulevards  of  the 
right  bank  and  the  Boulevard  Saint-Germain.  To  use 
Balzac's  own  words  in  "Facino  Cane,"  "I  was  then  liv- 
ing in  a  small  street  you  probably  do  not  know,  the  Rue 
des  Lesdiguieres.  It  commences  at  the  Rue  Saint-An- 
toine, opposite  a  fountain  near  the  Place  de  la  Bastille, 
and  issues  in  the  Rue  de  la  Cerisaie.  Love  of  knowl- 
edge had  driven  me  into  a  garret,  where  I  worked 
during  the  night,  and  spent  the  day  in  a  neighbouring 


62  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

library,  that  of  Monsieur.    When  it  was  fine,  I  took  rare 
walks  on  the  Bourdon  Boulevard." 

Balzac  speaks  of  the  "Library  of  Monsieur,"  It  is 
a  bit  of  affectation  comparable  to  his  insistence  on  the 
aristocratic  prefix  to  his  name.  It  is  the  Library  of  the 
Arsenal,  after  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  the  richest 
of  all  Paris  libraries;  begun  by  Francois  I,  rebuilt  by 
the  Valois  kings;  enlarged  by  Henri  IV;  and  occupied 
as  a  residence  by  Henri's  grand  master  of  artillery, 
Sully.  Among  the  treasures  still  to  be  found  there  are 
the  cross-examination  of  the  Marchioness  of  Brinvil- 
liers,  and  the  death  certificate  of  the  Man  in  the  Iron 
Mask;  while  a  curator  of  recent  years  was  M.  Funck- 
Brentano,  who  has  popularly  presented  to  the  world  so 
many  of  the  dramas  and  intrigues  of  French  history. 
It  was  in  the  library  by  day  and  the  garret  by  night 
that  Balzac  began  that  Hfe  of  terrific  toil  in  which  he 
persisted  until  the  end.  To  those  years  belong  the 
happily  forgotten  novels  of  his  prentice  hand :  "Le  Cen- 
tenaire,"  "L'Heritage  de  Birague,"  "Wann  Chlone," 
"Jean  Louis,"  "Le  Vicaire  des  Ardennes" — to  recall  a 
few — issued  under  such  grotesque  pen  names  as:  "Hor- 
ace de  Saint-Aubin"  and  "Lord  R'hoone,"  the  latter 
an  anagram  of  Honore.  To  the  garret  he  took  his  scant 
supply  of  food,  and  carried  up  from  the  court  pump  the 
bucket  of  water  needed  for  the  making  of  the  coffee 
that  was  to  sustain  him  through  the  long  nights  of  pen 
work.  At  No.  9  Rue  des  Lesdiguieres,  where  he  lived 
for  fifteen  months,  he  was  digging  his  too-early  grave 
and  building  the  foundations  of  his  immortal  labour. 
His  only  relaxations  were  the  long  walks  that  gave  him 


THE  PARIS  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC    63 

his  amazing  knowledge  of  every  corner  of  the  Paris  of 
his  time,  and  the  hours  of  building  day  dreams  as  he 
contemplated  the  city  from  the  heights  of  the  cemetery 
of  Pere  Lachaise. 

That  was  the  period  of  Balzac  the  ineffectual  novelist. 
Before  that  there  had  been  Balzac  the  law  student. 

The  next  incarnation      ^^ _    _^., 

was  Balzac  the  pub-     ^11  ^^^"^      ^^  | 

lisher  and  printer. 
There  is,  near  the 
Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts, 
between  the  Rue 
Bonaparte  and  the 
Rue  de  Seine,  a  little 
street  so  narrow  that 
two  vehicles  cannot 
pass  in  it.  It  is  now 
the  Rue  Visconti.  A 
century  ago  it  was 
known  as  the  Rue  des 
Marais  Saint-Ger- 
main. There,  at  No. 
17,  a  house  that  was 
later  occupied  by  the 
studio  of  Paul  Dela-  . 

roche,  Balzac  established  the  printing  press  that  ruined 
him.  His  first  idea  was  to  bring  out  compact  edi- 
tions of  the  complete  works  of  different  authors 
in  one  volume,  and  he  began  with  Moliere  and  La 
Fontaine.  That  venture  alone  saddled  him  with  15,000 
francs  of  debt.    Finally,  about  the  beginning  of  1828, 


THE  RUE  VISCONTI 


64         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

printing  press  and  type  foundry  were  sold  at  a  ruinous 
sacrifice,  and  Balzac  faced  life  with  obligations  amount- 
ing to  120,000  francs  hanging  over  him.  Of  this 
money  37,600  francs  had  been  loaned  by  the  novelist's 
mother,  and  45,000  francs  by  Madame  de  Berny. 
The  latter  sum  was  paid  back  in  full  in  1836,  the  year 
of  Madame  de  Berny's  death. 

As  a  printer  Balzac  had  lived  over  his  shop.  In  what 
is  now  the  Rue  Visconti  he  began  **Les  Chouans."  It 
was  the  first  book  to  bear  his  real  name  as  author,  and  he 
finished  it  in  his  next  home,  which  was  at  No.  2  Rue  de 
Tournon,  a  street  which  has  undergone  few  if  any 
changes  since  Balzac  dwelt  there.  Then,  in  1831,  he 
moved  to  the  Rue  Cassini,  near  the  Observatoire.  A 
companion  there  was  Jules  Sandeau,  who  had  recently 
broken  away  from  George  Sand.  Despite  the  separa- 
tion Madame  Dudevant  was  in  the  habit  of  paying 
occasional  visits  to  the  Rue  Cassini,  and  Balzac  returned 
these  visits,  puffing  up  the  stairs  of  the  five-storied 
house  of  the  Quai  Saint-Michel  at  the  top  of  which  she 
lived.  He  called  to  advise  her  about  her  writing,  but 
soon  turned  to  the  more  congenial  topic  of  his  own  work. 
"Ah,  I  have  found  something  else!  You  will  see!  You 
will  see!  A  splendid  idea!  A  situation!  A  dialogue! 
Nobody  has  ever  done  anything  like  it!"  George  Sand 
listened  patiently,  and  as  reward  Balzac  portrayed  her 
with  kindly  flattery  as  Mile,  des  Touches,  in  "Beatrix." 

In  the  Rue  Cassini  Balzac  lived  for  a  number  of 
years,  there  writing,  among  others,  "La  Peau  de  Cha- 
grin," "Eugenie  Grandet,"  "Le  Lys  dans  la  Vallee," 
"La  Medecin  de  Campagne,"  "Le  Pere  Goriot,"  "Le 


THE  PARIS  OF  HONOR]^  DE  BALZAC    65 

Cure  de  Tours,"  ** Cesar  Birotteau,"  "Louis  Lambert," 
*'La  Duchesse  de  Langeais,"  "La  Femme  de  Trente 
Ans,"  and  the  first  part  of  "Illusions  Perdues."  It  was 
during  this  period  that  Werdet  became  his  publisher, 
and  drew  that  vivid,  unforgetable  picture  of  his  daily- 
life  when  he  was  in  the  full  swing  of  creative  invention: 

He  usually  goes  to  bed  at  eight  o'clock,  after  a  light  dinner,  washed 
down  by  a  glass  of  Vouvray.  He  is  again  at  his  desk  by  two  in  the 
morning.  He  writes  from  that  time  till  six,  refreshing  himself  oc- 
casionally with  coffee  from  a  pot  kept  in  the  fireplace.  At  six  he 
has  his  bath,  in  which  he  remains  for  an  hour,  meditating.  Then  I 
call;  I  am  admitted  to  bring  proofs,  to  take  away  the  corrected  ones, 
and  to  wrest,  if  possible,  fresh  manuscript  from  him.  From  nine 
he  writes  till  noon,  when  he  breakfasts  on  two  boiled  eggs  and  some 
bread,  and  from  one  to  six  the  labour  of  correction  goes  on  again. 
This  life  lasts  for  six  weeks  or  two  months  during  which  time  he 
refuses  to  see  even  his  most  intimate  friends;  then  he  plunges  again 
into  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  or  mysteriously  disappears,  to  be 
next  heard  of  in  some  distant  part  of  France,  or  perhaps  in  Corsica, 
Sardinia,  or  Italy. 

There  was  one  Paris  residence  of  Balzac  which  must 
not  be  entirely  forgotten,  albeit  it  was  one  whose  hos- 
pitality the  novelist  neither  invited  nor  enjoyed.  That 
was  the  old  prison  of  the  National  Guard,  known  flip- 
pantly as  the  "Hotel  des  Haricots."  Balzac,  unHke 
the  Crevel  of  his  "La  Cousine  Bette,"  loathed  the  com- 
pulsory service,  and  evaded  it  on  all  possible  occasions. 
Once  he  hid  himself  in  a  remote  quarter  under  the  name 
of  "Madame  Durand."  A  friend,  learning  his  where- 
abouts, sent  him  a  letter  addressed:  "Madame  Durand, 
nee  Balzac."    Again  and   again   Balzac  matched  his 


66  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

wits  against  those  of  the  searching  authorities,  but 
occasionally  he  was  caught,  and  forced  to  serve  a  term 
of  punishment  which  was  annoying  though  involving  no 
great  personal  hardship. 

Even  after  he  moved  to  the  Rue  des  Batailles,  in  the 
Passy  section,  then  a  retired  and  country-like  suburb 
of  Paris,  Balzac  retained  the  rooms  in  the  Rue  Cassini 
as  a  refuge  from  over-insistent  creditors.  The  Rue  des 
Batailles  quarters  were  described  in  "La  Fille  aux  Yeux 
d'Or."  They  were  very  luxurious,  but  connected  with 
them  were  two  secret  chambers,  one  fitted  up  with  a 
camp  bedstead  and  the  other  with  a  writing  table. 
Concealed  doors  led  to  these  hiding  places  which  were 
used  whenever  Balzac  was  pursued  by  emissaries  of  the 
Garde  Nationale,  creditors,  or  enraged  editors.  Even 
Passy  was  not  far  enough  away  to  discourage  the 
visits  of  these  pests;  so  in  1838  Balzac  bought  three 
acres  of  ground  at  Ville-d'Avray,  a  little  village  near 
Sevres,  on  the  road  to  Versailles.  There,  at  No.  14 
Rue  Gambetta,  "Les  Jardies"  may  be  seen  to-day,  a 
shrine  to  the  statesman  Gambetta,  who  died  there,  and 
no  less  a  shrine  to  the  creator  of  the  **Comedie  Hu- 
maine." 

"There  are  in  Paris  certain  streets,"  wrote  Balzac 
in  "  Ferragus" — "as  dishonoured  as  can  be  any  man  con- 
victed of  infamy;  then  there  are  noble  streets,  also 
streets  that  are  simply  honest,  also  young  streets  con- 
cerning whose  morality  the  public  has  not  yet  formed 
any  opinion;  then  there  are  murderous  streets,  streets 
older  than  the  oldest  possible  dowagers,  estimable 
streets,  streets  that  are  always  clean,  streets  that  are 


THE  PARIS  OF  HONORS  DE  BALZAC    67 

always  dirty,  workingmen's  streets,  students'  streets, 
and  mercantile  streets.  In  short,  the  streets  of  Paris 
have  human  quaHties,  and  impress  us  by  their  physi- 
ognomy with  certain  ideas  against  which  we  are  defence- 
less." Given  the  seer-Hke  vision  of  a  Balzac  that  is  the 
story  of  the  streets  of  any  great  city  that  boasts  a  his- 
tory. 

The  trail  that  leads  to  the  homes  associated  with 
Balzac's  own  life  is  of  minor  significance  to  that  which 
follows  the  footsteps  of  the  men  and  women  who  live 
in  the  pages  of  his  "Comedie  Humaine."  For  the 
Hulots,  MarnefFes,  Goriots,  Rastignacs,  Nucingens, 
and  Rubempres  stalk  the  streets  of  Lutetia,  while  the 
dust  of  the  great  romancer  lies  yonder  in  Pere  Lachaise. 
But  though  the  types  remain,  imagination  has  to  be 
brought  freely  into  play  for  the  reconstruction  of  the 
old  stage  setting.  For  most  of  it  was  long  ago  pickaxed 
out  of  sight,  swept  away  in  the  course  of  the  gigantic 
changes  wrought  by  Baron  Haussmann  during  the 
Second  Empire.  Such  Balzacian  structures  as  still 
exist  and  retain  the  flavour  of  the  Paris  of  1830-40 
are  almost  all  to  be  found  on  the  south  side  of  the  Seine. 
Take  the  most  vivid  of  them  all,  the  Maison  Vauquer, 
called  by  Henry  James  the  "most  portentous  setting 
of  the  scene  in  all  the  Hterature  of  fiction." 

There  is  no  American  with  four  days  to  spend  in 
Paris  who  will  not  find  time  to  visit  the  gardens  of  the 
Luxembourg,  and  thence  walk  up  the  Rue  Soufflot  for 
a  glimpse  of  the  Pantheon.  Let  the  reader,  for  the 
moment,  assume  that  as  his  situation,  and  continue  the 
journey  a  little  farther,  veering  off^  to  the  right,  and 


68 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


passing  down  the  Rue  de  TEstrapade.  A  moment's 
glance  at  a  map  will  make  it  all  plain  sailing.  Where 
the  Rue  de  I'Estrapade  comes  to  an  abrupt  end  in  a 
little  triangle,  turn  to  the  right  and  follow  the  Rue 
Tournefort,  which  in  Balzac's  day  was  known  by  its 
original  name  of  Rue  Neuve  Sainte-Genevieve.  Now, 
as  then,  it  seems  to  creep  timidly  over  the  brow  of  the 
historic  hill,  then  sharply  to  break  into  descent  as  it 

approaches  the  Rue  de 
TArbalete.  Now  as 
then  the  pomp  and  glit- 
ter of  Paris  seem  far 
away.  Stop  before  the 
house  that  bears  the 
number  24.  In  the 
course  of  many  visits  the 
writer  has  never  seen  the 
door  leading  into  the 
courtyard  when  it  was 
not  halfopen  in  apparent 
welcome.     Push   and 

THE     MAISON      VAUQUER  — "THE     MOST  _,,  , 

PORTENTOUS    SETTING    OF    THE    SCENE     IN     entCT.  1  hcre,    tO    Study 

ALL     THE      LITERATURE      OF      FICTION"-    ^J^J^     ^J^^      UtmOSt 


'^-J^' 


Henry  James 


free- 
dom, is  the  little  gar- 
den where  Vautrin  poured  his  insidious  poison  into  the 
too  willing  ear  of  Eugene.  From  a  corner  which  has 
been  converted  into  a  storehouse  for  wood,  the  Pilgrim 
peering  through  dingy  windows,  looks  into  the  very 
dining  room  where  "Trompe-la-mort"  was  taken  by 
the  soldiers  and  the  police,  and  turned  his  terrible 
eyes  on  his  betrayers.  Mile.    Michonneau   and    "Fil- 


THE  PARIS  OF  HONORfi  DE  BALZAC    69 

de-Sole.'*  Fiction  possesses  no  more  convincing  pile 
of  brick  and  mortar. 

That  shabby  -pension  bourgeoise  in  the  Rue  Neuve 
Sainte-Genevieve  where  Goriot  suflPered  and  died  was  in 
sharp  contrast  to  the  surroundings  of  the  adored 
daughters  for  whom  he  stripped  himself  to  the  last  sou. 
From  far  across  the  Seine  these  daughters  came  in 
stately  equipages,  not  through  a  sense  of  filial  devotion, 
but  in  the  greedy  hope  of  being  able  to  wheedle  some 
fresh  sacrifice.  The  Comtesse  de  Restaud,  Anastasie, 
lived  in  the  Rue  du  Helder,  a  street,  then  fashionable, 
running  from  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  to  the  Boule- 
vard Haussmann.  Madame  de  Nucingen,  Delphine, 
lived  in  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare.  From  there  she  and 
Eugene  de  Rastignac  drove  to  the  Palais  Royal  in  order 
that  he,  a  beginner,  might  risk  a  hundred  francs  for 
her  in  the  hope  of  winning  enough  to  meet  her  imme- 
diate needs.  Near  the  Theatre  Fran9ais  the  carriage 
stopped,  and  Eugene,  alighting,  found  his  way  to  a  hell 
in  a  near-by  street.  The  number  above  the  door  was  9, 
and  Rastignac,  staking  on  number  21,  the  figure  of  his 
own  age,  and  restaking  on  the  red,  carried  back  to  his 
lady  the  sum  of  seven  thousand  francs. 

In  Balzac's  day  the  quarter  of  Paris  chosen  by  wealth, 
as  opposed  to  sang  azur,  which  clung  to  its  Faubourg 
Saint-Germain,  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  present 
Gare  Saint-Lazare.  The  favourite  street  was  the  Rue  de 
la  Pepiniere,  continued  by  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare.  An- 
other fashionable  street  was  the  Rue  de  Provence,  and 
there  Balzac  placed  the  house  of  the  seven  courtesans, 
of  "  Les  Comediens  sans  le  Savoir."    The  present  Opera 


70  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

and  its  Place  did  not  then  exist,  nor  was  there  any 
Avenue  de  I'Opera.  One  of  the  cluster  of  narrow  streets 
then  lying  between  the  boulevards  and  the  Louvre  was 
the  Rue  de  Langlade  where,  in  "Splendeurs  et  Miseres 
des  Courtisanes,"  Vautrin  found  Esther  la  Torpille  at 
death's  door. 

In  the  beginning  of  "Une  Double  Famille'*  Balzac 
emphasized  the  darkness  and  unhealthiness  of  the  region 
about  the  old  church  of  Saint-Merri.  In  that  section 
were  the  Rue  des  Lombards  where  Matifat  presided 
over  the  wholesale  drug  business;  and  the  Rue  Aubry 
le  Boucher,  once  the  Rue  des  Cinq  Diamants,  where 
Popinot  of  "Cesar  Birotteau"  had  his  shop.  The 
house  described  in  "Une  Double  Famille"  was  in  the 
Rue  Tourniquet-Saint- Jean,  which  was  only  five  feet 
wide  at  its  broadest,  and  was  cleaned  only  when  it 
rained. 

But  it  is  to  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  now  little 
more  than  a  name,  that  one  turns  for  the  shades  of  the 
aristocratic  women  of  the  "Comedie  Humaine."  There 
was  Rastignac's  relative,  the  Vicomtesse  de  Beauseaunt, 
one  of  the  queens  of  fashion,  whose  hotel  was  thought 
to  be  the  pleasantest  in  all  the  Faubourg,  and  where 
one  found  the  best-dressed  women  of  the  great  world 
of  Paris — Lady  Brandon,  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais,  the 
Comtesse  de  Kergarouet,  the  Comtesse  Ferraud,  Mme. 
de  Lanty,  Mme.  de  Serizy,  the  Marquise  de  Listomere, 
the  Duchesse  de  Carigliano,  the  Marquise  d'Aiglemont, 
the  Marquise  d'Espard,  Mme.  Firmiani,  and  the  Duch- 
esse de  Maufrigneuse,  attended  by  the  gilded  and  in- 
solent youth  of  the  period,  the  Maulincourts,  Maximes 


THE  PARIS  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC    71 

de  Trailles,  Ronquerolles,  Ajuda-Pintos,  and  Van- 
denesses.  Even  the  tradition  of  the  quarter  has  been 
shaken  by  the  Great  War,  and  for  years  before  August, 
1914,  Httle  but  tradition  remained. 

On  the  south  bank  of  the  river,  almost  opposite  where 
the  Palace  of  the  Tuileries  once  stood,  there  is  a  small 
street,  the  Rue  de  Beaune,  running  from  the  Quai 
Voltaire  to  the  Rue  de  TUniversite.  It  is  reached  by 
crossing  the  Pont  Royal  and  turning  to  the  left.  Where 
the  Rue  de  Beaune  abuts  on  the  Quai  Voltaire  is  the 
house  in  which  Voltaire  died,  and  from  which  his  body, 
wrapped  in  a  dressing  gown  and  held  up  by  straps, 
like  a  traveller  asleep,  was  taken  in  a  coach  for  inter- 
ment outside  Paris  at  the  Abbey  of  SceUieres  in  Cham- 
pagne. Next  to  that  house  there  was  until  a  few  years 
ago  an  antiquary *s  shop,  which  had  been  there  in  Bal- 
zac's day,  and  which  had  often  tempted  the  novelist  to 
extravagances  that  made  heavier  and  heavier  the  bur- 
den of  his  debts.  That  shop  was  the  background  of 
the  first  act  of  "La  Peau  de  Chagrin,"  for  the  opening 
scene  in  the  Palais  Royal  gambling  house  was  the  brief- 
est of  prologues.  It  was  with  the  determination  of 
self-destruction  that  Raphael  de  Valentin  descended 
the  staircase  of  No.  36  after  the  turn  of  the  cards  had 
reduced  him  to  penury.  He  left  the  galleries  of  the 
Palais  Royal,  walked  as  far  as  the  Rue  Saint-Honore, 
crossed  the  Tuileries  gardens,  and  then  the  Pont  Royal 
to  the  left  bank.  It  was  the  spectacle  of  Raphael  look- 
ing down  at  the  swirling  waters  that  moved  Balzac  to 
the  often-quoted  saying  that  the  newspaper  paragraph: 
** Yesterday,  at  four  o'clock,  a  young  woman  threw 


72         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

herself  into  the  Seine  from  the  Pont  des  Arts,"  con- 
tained the  essence  of  the  greatest  human  drama.  But 
Raphael,  shuddering  at  the  visions  conjured  up  by  his 
burning  imagination,  crossed  the  quai,  and  entered  the 
antiquary's  shop  where  he  found  the  magic  skin  which 
granted  every  wish,  but  with  every  wish  decreased  in 
size,  diminishing,  with  its  shrinking,  the  Hfe  of  its  posses- 
sor. 

On  the  site  occupied  by  the  present  Sorbonne,  at  the 
corner  of  the  Place  de  la  Sorbonne  and  the  Rue  Neuve 
de  Richelieu,  was  the  famous  Flicoteau  of  "Illusions 
Perdues."  In  that  restaurant  of  old  Bohemia  where 
Lucien  de  Rubempre  met  Lousteau  and  d'Arthez,  a 
dinner  of  three  dishes  and  a  carafon  of  wine  might  be 
had  for  a  franc.  Not  French  Bohemians  only  gathered 
there.  Thackeray  knew  it  and  wrote  of  it  in  "PhiHp," 
and  Bulwer-Lytton  described  it  at  length. 

Raphael  de  Valentin  lived  in  a  dilapidated  hotel 
garni  in  the  Rue  des  Cordiers  known  as  the  Hotel  Saint- 
Quentin.  "Nothing  could  be  more  horrible  than  that 
garret  with  its  dirty,  yellow  walls,  smelling  of  poverty, 
its  sloping  ceiling,  and  the  loosened  tiles,  affording 
glimpses  of  the  sky."  Once  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau 
had  lived  in  that  hostelry,  or  in  a  similar  one  close  by, 
a  fact  which  served  somewhat  to  reconcile  Raphael 
to  the  misery  of  his  surroundings.  Approximately  the 
spot  is  easy  to  locate,  for  it  was  near  the  corner  of  the 
still-existing  Rue  de  Cluny.  But  the  Hotel  Saint- 
Quentin  and  the  Rue  des  Cordiers  have  long  since 
vanished,  swept  away  to  make  room  for  certain  new 
buildings  of  the  Sorbonne. 


The  old  Pont  Neuf.  This  bridge,  the  oldest  of  all  spanning  the  Seine, 
has  been  to  French  fiction  what  the  Rialto  was  to  the  gossips  of  mediaeval 
Venice.  Balzac  said:  "Drama's  essence  is  in  the  words: 'Yesterday,  at 
four  o'clock,  a  woman  threw  herself  into  the  river  from  the  Pont  Neuf.' " 


THE  PARIS  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC    73 

Like  the  Hotel  Saint-Quentin,  the  Rue  du  Doyenne 
has  to  depend  on  imagination  for  reconstruction.  It 
was  in  the  Rue  du  Doyenne  that,  in  "La  Cousine 
Bette"  Baron  Hulet  first  saw  Valerie  MarnefFe,  and  that 
meeting  and  the  old  quarter  as  pictured  by  Balzac  are 
fascinating  even  in  the  memory.     Recall  the  words: 

Between  the  little  gate  leading  to  the  Pont  du  Carrousel  and  the 
Rue  du  Musee,  everyone  having  come  to  Paris,  were  it  but  a  few 
days,  must  have  seen  a  dozen  houses  with  a  decayed  frontage  where 
the  dejected  owners  have  attempted  no  repairs,  the  remains  of  an 
old  block  of  buildings  of  which  the  destruction  was  begun  at  the 
time  Napoleon  contemplated  the  completion  of  the  Louvre.  This 
street  and  the  blind-alley  known  as  the  Impasse  du  Doyenne  are 
the  only  passages  into  this  gloomy  and  forsaken  block,  inhabited 
perhaps  by  ghosts,  for  there  is  never  any  one  to  be  seen.  The  pave- 
ment is  much  below  the  footway  of  the  Rue  du  Musee,  on  a  level 
with  that  of  the  Rue  Froidmanteau.  Thus,  half  sunken  by  the 
raising  of  the  soil,  these  houses  are  also  wrapped  in  the  perpetual 
shadow  cast  by  the  lofty  buildings  of  the  Louvre,  darkened  on  that 
side  by  the  northern  blast.  Darkness,  silence,  an  icy  chill,  and  the 
cavernous  depth  of  the  soil  combine  to  make  these  houses  a  kind  of 
crypt,  tombs  of  the  living.  Driving  in  a  fiacre  past  this  spot,  and 
chancing  to  look  down  the  little  Rue  du  Doyenne,  a  shudder  freezes 
the  soul,  and  we  wonder  who  can  live  there,  and  what  things  may 
be  done  there  at  night,  at  an  hour  when  the  alley  is  a  cut-throat  pit, 
and  the  vices  of  Paris  run  riot  under  the  cloak  of  darkness. 

That  block  of  black  old  eighteenth-century  houses, 
which  in  Balzac's  time  knew  the  presence  of  Gautier 
and  Gavarni,  long  since  fell  before  the  pickaxe  of  im- 
provement. But  the  traveller  of  to-day,  taking  his 
place  in  the  Place  du  Carrousel  by  the  statues  of 
Gambetta    and  of  Lafayette,   and  drinking  in  with 


74        THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

his  eyes  the  marvellous  view  to  the  west,  through 
the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  across  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde,  up  the  sweep  of  the  Champs-Elysees,  past 
the  Rond-Point,  and  on  to  the  great  Arch,  is  stand- 
ing on  the  exact  ground  once  trod  by  the  dainty  feet 
of  la  Marneffe. 

There  is,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Saint-Honore  and 
the  Rue  Castiglione,  a  hostelry  retaining  something  of 
the  old  French  flavour,  known  as  the  Hotel  de  France 
et  Choiseul.  With  the  virtues  or  the  shortcomings  of 
its  cuisine  and  management  the  present  discussion  has 
nothing  to  do,  the  interest  at  issue  being  that  just 
across  the  street  from  the  hotel,  on  the  north  side  of  the 
way,  was  the  retail  establishment  of  M.  Cesar  Birotteau. 
There  Cesar  began  his  Paris  life  as  an  errand  boy  for 
the  Ragons,  there  he  was  carried  wounded  and  lay  hid- 
den after  the  13  Vendemiaire;  there  he  made  the  fortune 
from  his  "Eau  Carminative,"  and  his  "Double  Pate 
des  Sultanes"  that  he  lost  in  speculation  in  waste 
ground  about  the  Madeleine.  Looking  back  on  that 
venture  we  realize  that  it  was  Cesar's  luck  and  not  his 
judgment  that  was  at  fault,  for  land  about  the  Made- 
leine is  now  as  valuable  as  any  in  Paris.  In  outward 
aspect  the  Rue  Saint-Honore,  with  its  narrow  pave- 
ment and  its  tall,  thin  houses,  is  much  the  same  as  it 
was  when  Balzac,  in  the  fever  of  creation,  irritably 
dismissed  such  topics  of  conversation  as  politics,  the 
Opera,  or  the  Bourse,  saying:  *'Come.  Let  us  discuss 
real  people!  I  must  tell  you  about  Cesar  Birotteau 
and  the  new  perfume  that  he  has  just  invented."  But 
the  opening  up  of  the  Avenue  de  I'Opera,  which  took 


THE  PARIS  OF  HONORE  DE  BALZAC     75 

place  since  Balzac's  day,  wrought  vast  changes  in  the 
business  conditions  of  this  section  of  the  city.  Cesar's 
establishment  to-day  would  probably  be  found  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix,  or  on  one  of  the  boulevards  not  too  far 
from  the  Place  de  TOpera. 


VI.  SINISTER  STREETS 

Slums  of  Paris — Ancient  Streets — The  Old  Cite  of  "Les  Mys~ 
teres  de  Paris" — The  Personal  Eugene  Sue — " Les  Mysieres,* 
and  " Le  Juif  Errant"  as  Serials — The  Underworld  of  1840— 
Caverns  in  the  Cours  la  Reine — Paul  de  Kock — His  Amazing 
Popularity — The  Tribute  of  Major  Pendennis — The,  Paris  of 
Emile  Gahoriau. 


IT  WAS  the  American,  Richard  Harding  Davis,  who, 
in  "About  Paris,'*  made  the  extraordinary  state- 
ment that  Paris  was  a  city  without  slums.  Enter- 
taining as  Mr.  Davis's  book  was,  the  author's  knowledge 
of  his  subject  was,  above  all  at  the  time  of  writing,  ex- 
tremely limited.     What  he   undoubtedly  meant  was 

76 


SINISTER  STREETS  77 

that  Paris  slums  were  not  exactly  like  the  slums  of  New 
York  or  Philadelphia.  But  reading  in  any  explanation 
whatever  the  statement  was  enough  to  have  stirred 
Honore  de  Balzac  and  Victor  Hugo,  not  to  mention 
Eugene  Sue,  in  their  graves.  If  the  outward  and  visible 
manifestation  of  the  slum  means  the  dim,  narrow,  tor- 
tuous street,  the  dingy,  moldering  structure,  and  the 
broken,  uneven  roadway,  old  Paris  was  little  more  than 
one  vast  slum.  And,  though  the  American  traveller 
who  elects  to  spend  all  his  time  on  the  brilliant  boule- 
vards, or  in  the  newer  city  that  stretches  away  to  the 
west,  may  never  discover  it,  much  of  old  Paris  remains. 
To  find  these  sinister  streets  is  a  matter  of  no  great 
difficulty  nor  does  it  call  for  the  expenditure  of  any  vast 
amount  of  time  or  energy.  In  the  course  of  that  famil- 
iar journey  along  the  line  of  the  grand  boulevard  that, 
under  various  names,  stretches  from  the  Madeleine  to 
the  Bastille,  ,  turn,  when  about  half-way,  |to  ithe 
southward,  and  plunge  into  the  labyrinth  where 
the  old  Temple  Quarter  and  the  old  Marais 
Quarter  jumble  together.  Some  of  these  streets  knew 
the  Valois;  many  of  them,  within  three-quarters  of  a 
century,  have  bristled  with  barricades.  In  that  process 
which  has  come  to  be  called  the  "Haussmannising" 
of  Paris,  the  Third  Napoleon  was  actuated  by  the  desire 
to  make  the  capital  more  beautiful  and  sanitary,  and 
also  to  raze  thoroughfares  so  easy  to  put  in  a  state  of 
defence  from  wall  to  wall  that  they  were  a  direct  incite- 
ment to  insurrection.  For  atmosphere  seek  the  short 
Rue  de  Venise,  which  is  within  a  stone*s  throw  of  the 
broad  Boulevard  de  Sebastopol.     Ten  years  ago  there 


78 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


was  said  to  be  somewhere  about  here  a  famous  thieves* 
restaurant;  a  sort  of  burglars*  "Maxim's,**  although  the 
apache  is  not  so  likely  to  lurk  in  this  quarter,  preferring 
the  slopes  of  Montmartre,  or  the  shadows  of  the  Buttes 
Chaumont  or  of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.     In  the  summer 

of  1917  the  writer 
could  find  no  trace  of 
"The  Guardian 
Angel,**  which  per- 
haps bore  out  the 
story  that,  in  the 
perilous  days  of  late 
August,  1 914,  General 
Gallieni  dealt  swiftly 
and  summarily  with 
Casque  d'Or  and  his 
pals.  But  it  is  one  of 
the  most  ancient  of 
Paris  streets,  this 
twisting,  ill-smelling, 
hideous,  yet  quaint 
lane  with  the  over- 
hanging houses  and 
the  primitive  lanterns.  There  is  a  flavour  to  the  very- 
names  of  some  of  the  streets  about  here;  the  Rue  des 
Francs-Bourgeois,  the  Rue  des  Blancs-Manteaux,  the 
Rue  Taille-Pain,  the  Rue  Brise-Miche,  the  Rue  Pierre- 
au-Lard,  and  the  Rue  Pirouette,  which  derived  its 
appellation  from  the  old  iron  wheel  pierced  with  holes 
for  the  head  and  arms  of  murderers,  panders,  blas- 
phemers, and  vagabonds,  and  turned  every  half  hour  in 


RUE  DE  VENISE 


SINISTER  STREETS  79 

a  different  direction,  exposing  its  victims  to  new  points 
of  public  derision. 

Nor  is  it  in  this  quarter  alone,  a  quarter  lying  between 
the  Halles  Centrales  to  the  west  and  the  Archives 
Nationales  to  the  east,  that  the  sinister  streets  are  to 
be  found.  Climb  the  hill  of  Montmartre  for  the 
splendid  church  that  crowns  the  summit,  and  the  vast 
panorama  that  Paris  below  presents,  but  do  not  grudge 
the  half  hour  additional  to  visit  what  remain  of  the 
curious,  half-country  lanes  that  run  slantingly  between 
the  high  stone  walls.  On  the  South  Bank  of  the  Seine, 
from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  zig-zag  in  over  the  trail  of 
Javert's  pursuit  of  Jean  Valjean  through  old  world 
thoroughfares  that  lead  past  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of 
Saint-Gene  vie  ve.  Once,  between  this  quarter  and  the 
quarter  that  lies  to  the  east  of  the  Central  Markets, 
there  was  another  quarter  where  the  streets  were  sinis- 
ter. That  was  the  Cite  as  it  was  in  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  a  region  of  which  the  most  clearly 
staked  fiction  claim  is  that  of  Eugene  Sue  and  his 
"Mysteries  of  Paris,"  which  has  been  called  the  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin'*  of  socialism;  just  as  Sue's  other  novel 
which  has  endured,  "The  Wandering  Jew,"  has  been 
called  the  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  of  anticlericalism. 

The  veracious  author  of  "An  Englishman  in  Paris" — 
which,  incidentally,  is  one  of  the  most  instructive  and 
entertaining  of  books  of  its  kind  despite  the  fact  that  it 
purported  to  deal  at  first  hand  with  events  many  of 
which  happened  years  before  Mr.  Albert  Vandam  came 
into  the  world — described  the  famous  creator  of  "Les 
Mysteres  de  Paris"  and  "Le  Juif  Errant"  as  the  most 


8o         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

pompous  of  poseurs,  who,  having  written  a  rousing  good 
story  for  the  sake  of  the  tale  itself,  found  himself  un- 
expectedly elevated  to  a  pedestal  as  a  champion  of  the 
cause  of  proletaire,  and  blandly  accepted  the  motives 
attributed  to  him  and  the  accruing  honours.  In  com- 
pany, according  to  the  "Englishman,**  M.  Eugene  Sue 
was  in  the  habit  of  assuming  a  far-off  air,  as  if  occupied 
deeply  by  problems  beyond  the  ken  of  those  about  him. 
His  very  dandyism  of  manner  and  attire  was  offensive. 
Once  he  complained  of  cleaned  gloves.  Their  odour 
made  him  ill.  "  But,  my  friend,**  said  Alfred  de  Musset, 
"they  don't  smell  worse  than  the  dens  that  you  de- 
scribe for  us.     Don*t  you  ever  visit  them?'* 

"The  Mysteries  of  Paris'*  and  "The  Wandering 
Jew**  are  still  justly  held  to  be  among  the  colossal 
narratives  of  all  time.  But  their  author  is  now  little 
more  than  a  name.  Yet  there  was  a  time,  in  the  pro- 
ductive decade  of  1840-50,  when  Sue,  as  a  literary  force, 
was  ranked  with  the  elder  Dumas  and  the  great  Balzac, 
probably  rather  higher  than  the  latter.  George  Sand 
spoke  of  his  work  as  "the  Menagerie,**  but  confessed 
that  she  could  not  miss  a  daily  instalment.  When  Wil- 
kie  Collins's  "The  Woman  in  White"  was  appearing 
in  All  the  Year  Round,  the  streets  approaching  the 
office  of  publication  on  the  day  of  issue  were  thronged 
with  people  waiting  to  buy  the  next  number.  Sue's 
serial  popularity — the  "Mysteries"  appeared  in  the 
Journal  des  Debats  and  "  Le  Juif  Errant"  in  the  Con- 
stitutional— far  surpassed  that  of  Wilkie  Collins.  It 
was  impossible  to  purchase  outright  a  copy  of  the  paper. 
**No,  Monsieur,"  the  news  vendor  would  explain,  "we 


SINISTER  STREETS  8i 

rent  them  out  at  ten  sous  the  half  hour,  the  time  re- 
quired to  read  M.  Sue's  story.'* 

There  is  an  age  at  which  one  should  read  for  the  first 
time  "The  Mysteries  of  Paris"  and  "The  Wandering 
Jew, "  just  as  there  is  an  age  at  which  one  should  first 
read  "The  Leather-Stocking  Tales,"  and  "Monte 
Cristo,"  and  Murger's  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Boheme," 
and  a  score  more.  When  the  world  is  young  what  a 
thrill  there  is  in  the  sinister  streets,  and,  above  all,  in 
the  startling  names  of  the  characters  of  the  strange 
underworld  of  that  Paris  of  the  eighteen-thirties — "the 
Schoolmaster,"  "the  Slasher,"  the  Skeleton,"  "the 
Ogress,"  "Sweet-throat"!  The  very  first  paragraph  of 
the  "Mysteries"  plunges  the  reader  into  a  world  as 
amazing  as  the  Bagdad  of  the  "Arabian  Nights."  The 
years  fall  away,  correct  official  buildings  and  broad  open 
spaces  disappear,  and  in  their  place  is  the  old  Cite 
with  its  tortuous  thoroughfares  nearly  as  they  were 
when  the  hunchback  Quasimodo  peered  down  on  them 
from  the  towers  of  Notre  Dame.  Four  bridges  cross 
the  Seine  from  the  north  bank  to  the  Cite :  the  Pont  Neuf, 
the  Pont  au  Change,  the  Pont  Notre  Dame,  and  the 
Pont  d'Arcole.  It  was  across  the  Pont  au  Change — not 
the  spacious  bridge  of  to-day  which  dates  from  about 
i860,  but  the  old  bridge,  one  of  the  most  ancient  in 
Paris,  deriving  its  name  from  the  shops  of  the  money- 
changers and  goldsmiths  flanking  it — that  Rodolphe 
found  his  way  to  battle  with  the  "Slasher,"  to  rescue 
"  Fleur-de-Marie,"  and  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
den  of  the  "Ogress."  Before  the  changes  which  trans- 
formed this  part  of  Paris  the  quarter  was,  as  Sue  de- 


82         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

scribed  it,  one  of  dark,  narrow  streets,  where  malefactors 
swarmed  in  the  drinking  dens,  of  sooty  houses  with 
sweaty  walls,  and  so  overhung  as  almost  to  touch  eaves. 
The  tapis-franc  bearing  the  name  of  the  "White  Rab- 
bit," and  over  which  Mother  Ponisse  presided,  occupied 
the  ground  floor  of  a  lofty  house  in  the  middle  of  the 
Rue  aux  Feves  "The  Rue  de  la  Juiverie,  the  Rue  aux 
Feves,  the  Rue  de  la  Calandre,  the  Rue  des  Mar- 
mousets. "  M.  Georges  Cain,  Curator  of  the  Carnavalet 
Museum  and  of  the  Historic  Collections  of  the  City  of 
Paris  has  recorded,  "for  centuries  this  quarter  had  been 
the  haunt  of  the  lowest  prostitution;  there,  too,  dyers 
had  estabhshed  their  many-coloured  tubs;  and  blue, 
red,  or  green  streams  flowed  down  these  streets  with 
their  old  Parisian  names." 

But  the  slums  of  old  Paris  with  which  M.  Eugene 
Sue's  novels  had  to  do  were  not  confined  to  the  Cite. 
We  are  too  much  inclined  to  overlook  the  sweeping 
changes  that  a  century  has  wrought  even  in  old  world 
cities.  The  American  traveller  of  the  present  would 
stare  if  put  down  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  of  1830. 
In  what  is  now  the  Cours  la  Reine,  stretching  away  to 
the  west  along  the  banks  of  the  river,  there  was,  until 
1840,  when  the  last  of  them]  disappeared,  a  number  of 
subterranean  caverns,  low  buildings  with  cracked  walls 
and  tiled  roofs  usually  covered  with  slimy  green  moss, 
and,  attached  to  the  main  buildings,  wretched  wooden 
hovels,  serving  as  sheds  and  storehouses.  One  of  these 
taverns  was  the  Bleeding  Heart,  kept  by  "  Bras  Rouge," 
and  into  its  cellar  Rodolphe  was  thrust  by  the  "School- 
master" to  await  death  by  the  rising  of  the  tide  from  the 


SINISTER  STREETS  83 

near-by  Seine  waters.  The  stone  walls  of  the  cave  were 
found  hideously  spattered  with  the  blood  and  brains  of 
"La  Chouette"  (Screech-Owl)  when  the  police  officers 
entered  after  the  vicious  child  Tortillard  had  pushed 
her  down  the  steps  into  the  clutches  of  the  blind 
"Schoolmaster'*  chained  to  a  rock  in  the  cellar  floor. 

As  befits  its  sweeping  title,  the  trail  of  **Les  Mysteres 
de  Paris"  is  all  over  the  city  as  it  was  in  1838,  and  also 
reaches  out  through  the  environs.  By  following  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli  eastward  in  the  direction  of  the  Bastille, 
and  turning  north  into  the  Marais  at  a  corner  opposite 
the  Hotel  de  Ville,  we  enter  the  Rue  du  Temple,  which, 
at  its  other  end,  intersects  with  the  Rue  Turbigo  just 
below  where  the  circle  of  great  boulevards,  between  the 
Boulevard  Saint-Martin  and  the  Boulevard  du  Temple, 
is  broken  by  the  spacious  Place  de  la  Republique.  In 
this  street  dwelt  the  family  Morel  and  the  respectable 
Pipelet.  Since  1838  the  thoroughfare  has  been  changed 
and  greatly  widened.  The  old  Temple  Market,  of 
which  only  a  part  remains,  was  a  favourite  bit  for  de- 
scription by  the  French  romancers  of  the  early  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Of  the  Temple  itself,  the  chief 
stronghold  in  France  of  the  Knights  Templar  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  Tower,  where  the  royal  family  was 
imprisoned  in  1792  and  1793,  was  demolished  by 
Napoleon  I  in  i8ii,  but  part  remained  until  the  Hauss- 
mannising  of  Paris  under  Napoleon  III.  In  the  days 
of  "The  Mysteries  of  Paris,"  toward  the  middle  of  the 
Rue  du  Temple,  near  a  fountain  which  was  placed  in 
the  angle  of  a  large  square,  was  an  immense  parallel- 
ogram built  of  timber,  crowned  by  a  slated  roof.     A  long 


84       '  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

opening,  intersecting  this  parallelogram  in  its  length, 
divided  it  into  two  equal  parts;  these  were  in  turn 
divided  and  subdivided  by  little  lateral  and  transverse 
courts,  sheltered  from  the  rain  by  the  roof  of  the  edifice. 
In  this  bazaar  new  merchandise  was  generally  pro- 
hibited; but  the  smallest  rag  of  any  old  stuff,  the  smallest 
piece  of  iron,  brass,  or  steel,  found  its  buyer  or  seller. 
Half  a  score  blocks  eastward  from  the  Temple,  in 


OLD   TEMPLE   MARKET 


the  direction  of  the  Bourse,  may  be  found  to-day  the 
Rue  du  Sentier,  which  begins  at  the  Rue  Reaumur,  is 
bisected  by  the  Rue  des  Jeuneurs,  and  abuts  on  the 
Boulevard  Poissoniere.  It  was  there,  in  a  corner  house, 
that  dwelt  the  notary,  Jacques  Ferrand,  perhaps  the 
most  sinister  of  all  the  sinister  characters  of  the  complex 
tale,  the  evil  genius  of  the  "Mysteres  de  Paris  "  as  Rodin 


SINISTER  STREETS  85 

was  the  evil  genius  of  "Le  Juif  Errant.'*  There,  under 
a  garb  of  assumed  sanctity  the  spider  spun  his  webs 
and  wrought  his  villainies  until  the  day  when  he  was 
enflamed  and  outwitted  by  the  octoroon,  Cecily.  In 
the  early  part  of  the  century  this  was  a  neighbourhood 
which  drew  its  individuality  from  the  gilded  copper 
escutcheons  of  men  of  Ferrand's  calling.  Streets,  even 
where  they  continue  to  exist,  change  materially.  In- 
stitutions change  less.  In  connection  with  Eugene 
Sue,  there  is  Saint-Lazare,once  a  prison  for  women,  where 
Mont  Saint-Jean  was  put  to  the  torture  by  the  "She 
Wolf"  and  her  companions,  and  rescued  by  "Fleur-de- 
Marie."  But  La  Force  belonged  essentially  to  old 
Paris,  and  the  prestige  of  Bicetre,  where  the  "School- 
master" was  seen  for  the  last  time,  long  since  passed  to 
Charenton. 

If  Eugene  Sue  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  captain  among 
those  who  have  found  inspiration  for  fiction  in  the 
underworld  of  Paris,  the  company  he  must  be  consid- 
ered as  leading  is  one  of  well-filled  ranks.  The  romance 
of  crime  has  ever  been  a  favourite  subject  to  the  reader 
of  a  certain  kind  of  French  feuilleton.  In  print,  as  on 
the  stage,  fat  epiciers  have  found  delight  in  blubbering 
over  mimic  woes  and  shaking  their  fists  at  imaginary 
villainies.  The  more  complicated  the  plot  of  novel  or 
melodrama  has  been  the  better  it  has  been  liked.  Take, 
by  way  of  illustration,  "The  Two  Orphans"  of  d'Hen- 
nery  and  Cormon,  which  has  held  the  stage  for  forty-five 
years,  and  will  doubtless  hold  it  for  twenty  years  more. 
It  was  Brander  Matthews  who  once  said  that  if  any  one 
were  to  write  down  a  description  of  the  plot  of  "The 


86  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Two  Orphans"  he  would  have  to  fill  a  dozen  pages; 
and  yet  such  was  d'Hennery's  knack  as  a  born  play- 
wright that  on  the  stage  it  is  all  evolved  so  lucidly  and 
naturally  as  to  be  perfectly  clear  at  every  moment.  If 
there  was  space  here  for  a  consideration  of  the  Paris  of 
the  Playwright,  "The  Two  Orphans,"  with  its  definite 
setting  in  eighteenth-century  Lutetia,  its  contrast  of  the 
persecuted  poor  and  the  oppressive  rich,  would  occupy 
a  position  somewhat  analogous  to  that  of  Sue's  "Les 
Mysteres  de  Paris"  in  fiction. 

Contemporaneous  with  Eugene  Sue,  and,  though  not 
taking  himself  quite  so  seriously  as  a  social  reformer, 
as  conspicuous  in  his  day  as  a  chronicler  of  the  fortunes 
of  the  humble,  was  Charles  Paul  de  Kock.  It  is  only 
by  the  retailing  of  anecdotes  that  one  can  convey  an 
idea  of  what  De  Kock's  stories  once  meant  to  readers 
not  only  in  Paris  and  France,  but  throughout  all  Eu- 
rope, from  London  to  St.  Petersburg.  Chateaubriand 
went  to  the  Vatican  to  visit  Pope  Gregory  XVI.  "Give 
me,  Vicomte,"  began  His  Holiness,  "some  news  of  my 
dear  son  Paul  de  Kock."  A  new  ambassador  presented 
his  credentials  to  the  king  of  the  country  to  which  he 
had  been  assigned.  "Ah!  You  are  just  from  Paris/' 
said  His  Majesty.  "You  must  know  the  news.  How 
is  the  health  of  Paul  de  Kock?"  Honore  de  Balzac, 
at  the  height  of  his  fame,  was  arrested  for  trespass  on 
the  outskirts  of  Paris.  The  presiding  magistrate  re- 
leased him  instantly,  believing  him  to  be  the  author  of 
"La  Laitiere  de  Montfermeil,"  which  he  considered  the 
greatest  of  all  novels.  Add  a  bit  of  Thackerayan  trib- 
ute: Major  Arthur  Pendennis's  library  was  confined 


SINISTER  STREETS  87 

to  the  "Army  and  Navy  Register/*  the  "Campaigns 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,"  "Debrett's  Peerage,"  the 
"Almanach  de  Gotha,"  and  the  novels  of  Paul  de 
Kock,  "which  certainly  make  me  laugh."  Disraeli's 
testimony:  One  of  the  characters  of  "Henrietta  Tem- 
ple" was  arrested.  A  friend  offered  congratulations, 
"Now  you  can  read  Paul  de  Kock.  By  Jove,  you  are  a 
lucky  fellow!"  All  over  Europe  people  were  studying 
Parisian  manners  in  his  novels,  while  the  author,  the 
most  quiet  and  bourgeois  of  men,  was  working  away 
steadily  in  his  little  apartment  on  the  Boulevard  Saint- 
Martin,  or  among  the  trees  and  vineyards  of  his  place 
at  Romainville. 

It  was  perhaps  to  being  the  most  bourgeois  of  men 
that  he  owed  a  large  measure  of  his  popularity.  He 
has  been  described  as  a  "Philistine  of  the  Marais,"  He 
had  the  advantage  of  being  absolutely  like  his  readers, 
sharing  their  opinions,  their  ideas,  their  feelings,  and 
their  prejudices.  Gautier  once  said  of  him  that  he  had 
not  the  faintest  idea  of  aesthetics;  that,  indeed,  "he 
would  readily  have  supposed,  like  Pradbn,  that  they 
were  some  chemical  substance."  For  the  purpose  of 
the  Paris  trail  it  is  enough  to  consider  two  of  his  books, 
"L'Homme  aux  Trois  Culottes"  and  "Le  Barbier  de 
Paris."  It  was  on  his  own  parents'  tragic  story  that  he 
based  the  former  novel.  His  father,  a  wealthy  Dutch 
banker  who  had  served  in  the  Army  of  the  North,  was 
guillotined  by  the  order  of  the  Revolutionary  Conven- 
tion, and  his  mother  was  thrown  into  prison.  The  Paris 
of  "Le  Barbier  de  Paris"  was  old  Paris,  the  Paris  of 
1630,  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIII;  the  Paris  the 


88  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

youthful  Gascon  D'Artagnan  found,  when  he  entered 
it  astride  his  Rosinante.  For  full  tribute  to  Paul  de 
Kock  as  the  chronicler  of  the  streets  of  his  much  be- 
loved Lutetia  through  many  ages  turn  to  Theophile 
Gautier,  who  said:  "Some  of  his  novels  have  the  same 
effect  on  me  as  Fenimore  Cooper's  *The  Last  of  the 
Mohicans';  I  seem  to  read  in  them  the  story  of  the  last 
Parisian,  invaded  and  submerged  by  American  civili- 
zation." 

Of  Paul  de  Kock's  Paris  Theophile  Gautier  wrote: 
One  met  French  people,  even  Parisians,  in thestreets. 
One  could  hear  French  spoken  on  that  boulevard  which 
was  then  called  the  Boulevard  de  Gand,  and  which  is 
now  called  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens.  .  .  .  The 
city  was  relatively  very  small,  or  at  least  its  activity 
was  restricted  within  certain  limits  that  were  seldon 
passed.  The  plaster  elephant  in  which  Gavroche  found 
shelter  raised  its  enormous  silhouette  on  the  Place  de 
la  Bastille,  and  seemed  to  forbid  passers-by  to  go 
any  farther.  The  Champs-Elysees,  as  soon  as  night 
fell,  became  more  dangerous  than  the  plain  of  Mara- 
thon: the  most  adventurous  stopped  at  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde.  The  quarter  of  Notre  Dame  de  Lorette 
included  only  vague  plots  of  ground  or  wooden  fences. 
The  church  was  not  built,  and  one  could  see  from  the 
boulevard  the  Butte  Montmartre,  with  its  windmills 
and  its  semaphore  waving  its  arms  on  the  top  of  the 
old  Tower.  The  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  went  early 
to  bed  and  its  solitude  was  but  rarely  disturbed  by  a 
tumult  of  students  over  a  play  at  the  Odeon. 

Of  the  lesser  men,  how  long  the  Hst  might  be  made 


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SINISTER  STREETS  89 

to  run!    Take,  at  random,  the  name  of  Fortune  du 
Boisgobey,  or  of  Ponson  du  Terrail,  who  has  been  dub- 
bed "the  Shakespeare  of  secret  assassination,"  or  of 
Gaston  Leroux,  at  whose  "The  Mystery  of  the  Yellow 
Room"  and  "The  Perfume  of  the  Lady  in  Black"  we 
were  thrilling  only  yesterday.    As  conspicuous  as  any, 
above  all  when  the  Paris  trail  is  to  be  considered,  was 
fimile  Gaboriau,  who  passed  on  to  Conan  Doyle  what 
he  inherited  from  Poe.     What  American  of  average 
reading  does  not  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  pleasant 
hours  in  company  with  the  characters  of  "Monsieur 
Lecoq,"  /*The  Honour  of  the  Name,"  "The  Lerouge 
Case,"  "File  No.  113,"  and  "The  Mystery  of  Orcival?" 
Linked  with  a  network  of  streets  was  Javert*s  pursuit 
of  Jean  Valjean  and  Cosette;  Oliver  Twist's  journey 
through  old  London  under  the  direction  of  the  Artful 
Dodger  that  finally  ended  at  the  den  of  Fagin;  the  cab 
ride   about   Rouen   described   in   "Madame   Bovary" 
that  was  responsible  for  Flaubert's  prosecution  before 
the  Tribunal  Correctionnel  de  Paris.    Of  comparatively 
minor  importance,  but  no  less  thrilling  in  the  reading,  is 
the  story  of  the  relentless  tracking  by  the  ambitious 
Lecoq  of  the  purposely  released  assassin  who  had  cried 
"It  is  the  Prussians  who  are  coming"  when  surrounded 
in  the  drinking  den  near  the  Barriere  dTtalie,  through 
half  the  winding  thoroughfares  of  the  city  to  the  garden 
wall  of  the  Hotel  de  Sairmeuse. 

"File  No.  113"  is  perhaps  esteemed  the  best  of  the 
Gaboriau  stories.  It  will  serve  to  indicate  how  those 
tales  were  bound  up  with  the  stones  of  Paris  of  their 
day.     The  banking  house  of  Andre  Fauvel,  the  scene 


90  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

of  the  safe  robbery  with  which  the  narrative  began, 
was  definitely  placed  at  No.  87  Rue  de  Provence.  The 
Rue  de  Provence  is  as  close  to  the  Boulevard  Hauss- 
mann  as  Nassau  Street  is  to  Broadway.  Nina  Gypsy, 
the  letters  of  whose  name  Prosper  Bertomy  had  used 
in  setting  the  combination  of  the  safe,  lived  at  No.  39 
Rue  Chaptal.  That  number  is  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue 
Leonie,  and  almost  directly  opposite  the  entrance  of  the 
Grand  Guignol,  world  famed  for  its  association  with  a 
certain  kind  of  one-act  play.  The  Archangel,  where 
Nina  sought  refuge,  was  on  the  Quai  Saint-Michel,  which 
faces  the  river  to  the  left  of  the  Place  Saint-Michel,  the 
gateway  through  which  one  passes  on  the  way  to  the  Latin 
Quarter,  the  Luxembourg,  or  the  Pantheon.  Fanfer- 
lot,  the  "Squirrel,"  finding  the  problem  beyond  his 
strength,  appealed  to  M.  Lecoq,  seeking  that  domi- 
nating personage  in  his  home  in  the  Rue  Montmartre, 
which  is  less  definite  than  usual,  for  the  reason  that  the 
street  in  question  is  a  long  one,  extending  from  the 
great  boulevard  all  the  way  to  the  Halles  Centrales. 
Lecoq,  under  his  assumed  name  of  M.  Verduret,  con- 
ferred with  Prosper,  after  the  latter's  release  from 
prison,  at  "La  Bonne  Foi,"  a  small  establishment,  half 
cafe  and  half  shop,  in  the  Rue  Saint-Honore,  near  the 
Palais  Royal.  The  fancy  dress  ball,  which  Lecoq  turned 
to  such  use,  was  held  in  the  house  of  the  bankers  Jan- 
didier,  in  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare.  The  ensuing  attempt 
on  Lecoq's  life  took  place  in  the  near-by  Rue  du  Fau- 
bourg Montmartre,  a  street  the  detective  had  naturally 
to  use  on  his  way  home.  For  that  home  the  admirer 
of  the  ingenious  in  the  narrative  of  detection  may  with- 


SINISTER  STREETS  91 

out  shame  feel  an  interest  akin  to  that  stirred  by  the 
sight  of  the  windows  in  Upper  Baker  Street,  London, 
behind  which  Mr.  Sherlock  Holmes  smoked  countless 
pipefuls  of  shag  tobacco,  and  dogmatically  imparted 
his  theories  to  the  obtuse  Watson. 


OLD  MONT  SAINTE-GENEVlfeVE 

VII.  ABOUT  PARIS  WITH  ALPHONSE  DAUDET 

The  Rue  Mouffetard — Daudet's  First  Impressions  of  Paris — 
In  the  Latin  Quarter  and  the  Marais — Scenes  of  "Sapho" — 
"Les  Rois  en  Exil" — The  Genesis  of  the  Story — The  Rue 
Monsieur  le  Prince — In  the  Paris  Ghetto — Originals  of  the 
Daudet  Characters. 


IN  THAT  remote  section  of  Paris  that  lies  beyond 
the  Pantheon  and  at  the  foot  of  the  Mont  Sainte- 
Genevieve  there  is  a  street  known  as  the  Rue 
Mouffetard.  It  is,  and  always  has  been,  a  wretched 
thoroughfare,  poorly  paved  with  irregular  cobble  stones, 
and  lined  by  squalid  tenements.  The  centre  of  an 
Italian    colony    composed   mostly  of  ragpickers,   the 

92 


ABOUT  PARIS  WITH  DAUDET  93 

gray  monotony  of  its  winding  length  is  relieved  by  a 
touch  of  colour  suggestive  of  the  climbing  slums  of 
Naples.     In  that  street  was  one  of  the  first  Paris  homes 
that  Alphonse  Daudet  shared  with  his  brother.     The 
two  migrated  there  from  the  little  room  on  the  fifth 
floor  of  the  Hotel  du  Senat  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon  in 
which  Alphonse  first  slept  in  the  city  with  which  his 
subsequent  life  and  work  were  so  closely  associated.    He 
was  sixteen  when  he  made  that  long  journey  from  the 
heart  of  Languedoc,  where  he  had  been  an  usher  in  a 
school,  to  devote  himself  to  literature.     The  wretched 
little  valise  which  he  had  brought  with  him  was  pushed 
across  the  city  to  the  Latin  Quarter  on  a  hand-cart. 
Breakfast  at  a  creamery  in  the  Rue  Corneille,  and  then 
the  visit  to  the  Hotel  du  Senat.     "Almost  a  garret,'* 
Daudet  recorded  in  the  first  chapter  of  "Trente  Ans 
de  Paris,"  "but  in  my  eyes  a  superb  apartment.    A 
Parisian  garret!    The  mere  sight  of  the  words  Hotel  du 
Senat  standing  forth  in  great  letters  on  the  sign  flattered 
my  self-esteem  and  dazzled  me.     Opposite  the  hotel, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  way,  there  was  a  house  dating 
from  the  last  century,  with  a  pediment  and  two  couchant 
figures,  which  always  looked  as  if  they  proposed  to  fall 
from  the  top  of  the  wall  into  the  street.     *That's  where 
Ricord  lives,*  said  my  brother,  *the  famous  Ricord,  the 
Emperor's    physician'."     But    his    brother   was    rich, 
being  paid  the  huge  sum  of  seventy-five  francs  a  month 
as  secretary  to  an  old  gentleman  who  was  dictating  his 
memoirs.    That  seventy-five  francs  a  month  enabled 
the  young  southerners  to  dwell  in  the  Hotel  du  Senat. 
But  the  old  gentleman  died,  or  his  memoirs  were  fin- 


94         THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

ished,  or  something  happened  to  disturb  the  princely 
income,  and  the  brothers  were  forced  to  take  up  their 
quarters  in  the  Rue  MoufFetard.  A  visit  to  that  street 
will  give  a  better  insight  into  the  work  of  the  creator  of 
**Sapho,"  "Fromont  Jeune  et  Risler  Aine,"  "Les  Rois 
en  fixil,"  "Jack,"  and  "Le  Nabab." 

In  the  course  of  his  years  in  Paris  Daudet  had  almost 
as  many  residences  as  there  are  Parisian  settings  for  his 
stories.  He  lived  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  where  he  found 
the  Numa  Roumestans  and  the  Elysee  Merauts  of  his 
youth.  He  lived  in  the  Quartier  de  I'Europe,  that  sec- 
tion of  the  city  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Gare  Saint- 
Lazare  associated  with  so  many  of  the  urban  scenes 
of  "Sapho."  "Fromont  Jeune  et  Risler  Aine"  was 
written  in  one  of  the  oldest  houses  in  the  Marais,  and  he 
worked  in  the  inspiring  atmosphere  of  his  subject,  in 
the  environment  in  which  his  characters  were  moving. 
At  stated  hours  the  going  to  and  fro  from  the  workshops, 
the  ringing  of  the  factory  bells,  passed  across  his  pages. 
He  was  invaded  by  the  local  colour.  The  whole  quarter 
helped  him,  carried  him  along,  worked  for  him.  The 
Sunday  evenings  that  he  spent  for  years  in  the  house  of 
Gustave  Flaubert  in  the  Rue  Murillo  almost  constituted 
a  residence  in  the  quarter  of  the  Pare  Monceau.  At 
the  time  of  his  death  his  home  was  in  a  street  in  the 
aristocratic  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  Thence,  twenty 
years  ago,  his  body  was  borne  to  its  resting  place  In  the 
Cemetery  of  the  Pere  Lachaise.  The  present  writer 
chanced  to  witness  the  passing  of  that  cortege  from  the 
sidewalk  of  the  Boulevard  Saint-Germain.  It  was  at  the 
time  when  the  excitement  over  the  Dreyfus  case  was  at 


PARIS  WITH  ALPHONSE  DAUDET       95 

its  height,  and  France  was  divided  into  two  camps,  the 
camp  of  those  who  voted  coupahle,  and  the  camp  of 
those  who  voted  innocent.  The  unpopular  Zola  was 
one  of  the  pall-bearers,  and  standing  near  the  writer 
was  a  violent  anti-Dreyfussard,  who  greeted  the  author 
of  the  Rougon-Macquart  with  the  cry:  "Respect  for 
the  memory  of  Alphonse  Daudet!     Conspuez  Zola!" 

If  the  visitor  chances  to  be  an  arrival  in  Paris  by  the 
Chemin  de  Fer  de  I'Ouest,  that  is  if  his  is  a  train  from 
Havre  where  he  has  descended  after  a  transatlantic 
journey  from  New  York  or  the  Channel  crossing  from 
Southampton,  he  has  but  to  leave  the  Gare  Saint-Lazare 
to  find  himself  in  the  heart  of  the  Paris  of  "Sapho.'* 
In  an  apartment  in  the  Rue  d'Amsterdam,  facing  the 
station,  Fanny  Legrand  and  Jean  Gaussin  went  to 
housekeeping  next  to  the  Hettemas.  When  the  nights 
were  stormy  they  could  hear  the  patter  of  the  rain  on 
the  zinc  roof  of  the  gare.  The  period  of  the  story  was 
about  1873,  yet  in  forty-five  years  the  street  has  changed 
hardly  at  all.  To  this  day,  a  few  doors  north  of  the 
apartment  is  the  English  tavern  where  Jean,  in  his 
anguish,  waited  until  far  into  the  night,  after  the  revela- 
tion of  Fanny's  past  heard  from  Caoudal  and  Dechelette 
in  front  of  the  cafe  in  the  Rue  Royale.  Following  the 
footsteps  of  Jean  in  the  brief  journey  between  cafe  and 
tavern,  a  slight  detour  will  find  the  little  Rue  de  I'Ar- 
cade,  where  Fanny  lived  in  luxurious  surroundings 
before  her  deepening  attachment  to  Jean  prompted  her 
carelessly  to  throw  ease  aside.  Facing  the  station  on 
the  west  as  the  Rue  d'Amsterdam  faces  it  on  the  east, 
is  the  Rue  de  Rome.     It  was  there,  in  the  great  house 


96  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

that  Dechelette  threw  open  to  artistic  Paris  in  the  brief 
periods  of  rest  from  engineering  tasks  in  remote  lands, 
the  story  began.  *'Jean  tout  court?'*  persisted  the 
woman  in  the  Egyptian  costume  to  the  shy  answer  of 
the  sunny-haired  young  Provencal,  and  there  ensued 
the  adventure  that  took  them  across  half  Paris  to  that 
climb  of  the  staircase  that  was  the  epitome  of  their 
lives  together. 

Also  quite  easy  of  identification  is  that  hotel  where 
Jean  Gaussin  was  first  installed  when  he  came  to  Paris 
to  fit  himself  for  the  consular  career,  and  up  the  five 
flights  of  stairs  of  which  he  carried  the  newly  made 
acquaintance  in  the  "gray  sadness  of  the  morning."  It 
is  in  the  Rue  Jacob,  to  the  west  of  the  Latin  Quarter, 
on  the  south  bank  of  the  river,  between  the  Ecole  des 
Beaux  Arts  and  the  church  of  Saint-Germain-des-Pres. 
To  reach  the  street  is  a  mere  matter  of  crossing  the 
Seine  by  the  Pont  du  Carrousel,  following  the  Rue  des 
Saints-Peres  past  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  and  then 
turning  to  the  left.  The  Rue  Jacob  abuts  at  its  eastern 
end  on  the  Rue  de  Seine.  The  hotel,  in  the  middle  of 
the  block,  has  had  as  subsequent  guests  a  number  of 
Americans,  visiting  Paris  for  more  or  less  prolonged 
periods,  and  probably  more  than  one  New  England 
conscience  has  slept  undisturbed  in  the  chamber  where 
began  the  tempestuous  loves  of  Sapho  and  Jean. 

To  the  scenic  making  of  "Les  Rois  en  Exil"  went 
the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  the  Rue  Royale,  bits  of  the  Latin 
Quarter,  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  and  the  Ghetto  in  the  Ma- 
rais.  The  book  was  born  in  a  vision  of  the  Place  du 
Carrousel.    One  evening  in  October  Daudet  was  stand' 


PARIS  WITH  ALPHONSE  DAUDET       97 

ing  looking  at  the  tragic  rent  in  the  Parisian  sky  caused 
by  the  fall  of  the  Tuileries.  Dethroned  princes  exiling 
themselves  in  Paris  after  their  downfall,  taking  up  their 
quarters  on  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  and  when  they  woke  in 
the  morning  and  raised  the  shades  at  their  windows, 
discovering  these  ruins.  From  that  seed  thought  Dau- 
det  builded  the  splendid  edifice.  It  is  the  note  with 
which  the  book  begins;  it  is  the  note  with  which  the 
book  ends.  The  heroic  Queen  Frederica,  stricken  in 
her  aspirations  and  in  the  terrible  accident  which  has 
befallen  her  son,  recognizes  the  analogy  between  those 
ruins  and  the  fortunes  of  kings  who  have  outlived  their 
day.  When  the  Tuileries,  their  ashes  gilded  by  a  ray 
of  the  departing  sunlight,  rise  before  her  to  recall  the 
past,  she  looks  at  them  without  emotion,  without  mem- 
ory, as  though  she  looked  upon  some  ancient  monument 
of  Egypt  or  Assyria,  the  witness  of  manners,  and  of 
morals,  and  of  peoples  vanished,  something  once  great, 
now  gone  forever. 

But  best  of  all  in  "Les  Rois  en  Exil"  is  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  Rue  Monsieur  le  Prince  in  the  Latin  Quarter 
where  the  monks  of  the  Order  of  Saint-Francis,  seeking  a 
tutor  for  the  little  heir  to  the  throne  of  Illyria,  go  to 
find  Elysee  Meraut.  Dickens  never  drew  the  picture 
of  a  street  with  more  loving  care.  "Amid  all  the  trans- 
formations of  the  Quarter,  and  those  great  gaps  through 
which  are  lost  in  the  dust  of  demolition  the  originality, 
and  the  very  memories  of  old  Paris,  the  Rue  Monsieur 
le  Prince  still  keeps  its  physiognomy  as  a  student's 
street,"  wrote  Daudet.  When  the  present  writer  last 
turned  into  it  from  the  Boulevard  Saint-Michel  near  the 


98  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Luxembourg  Gardens  in  1917,  and  followed  its  length 
down  to  the  point  where  it  flows  into  the  square  before 
the  Boulevard  Saint-Germain,  it  was  still  as  much  of  a 
student  street  of  the  old  type  as  was  possible  in  a  city 
nearing  the  end  of  the  third  year  of  the  world  war. 
There  were  the  book-stalls,  the  creameries,  and  the 
old-clothes  dealers  as  in  Meraut's  time.  But  gone  were 
the  students  of  Gavarni's  pencil,  with  long  hair  flying 
from  woolen  caps,  while  their  successors,  the  "future 
lawyers,  buttoned  from  head  to  foot  in  their  ulsters, 
brushed  and  gloved,  with  enormous  morocco  cases 
under  their  arms,  and  the  cold,  cunning  air  of  the  busi- 
ness agent  already  upon  them;  or  the  future  doctors,  a 
little  freer  in  behaviour,"  were  somewhere  in  the  fighting 
line  along  the  western  front. 

Also  exceedingly  vivid  are  the  glimpses  of  the  Rue 
Eginhard,  in  the  Marais,  where  Pere  Leemans  retained 
his  musty  old  place  of  connoisseurs,  after  opening  his 
splendid  antiquarian  shop  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  and 
where  the  sinister  Sephora  first  made  acquaintance 
with  the  world.  The  Rue  Eginhard  is  a  little  street, 
behind  the  Lycee  Charlemagne,  near  where,  on  the 
journey  between  the  Louvre  and  the  Place  de  la  Bastille, 
the  Rue  de  Rivoli  becomes  the  Rue  Saint-Antoine.  It  is 
best  described  in  the  words  of  Wattelet,  painter  of  the 
Grand  Club,  who  drew  the  picture  for  King  Christian. 
"Rue  Eginhard  ...  in  the  Marais  ...  a 
dirty  little  damp  alley,  between  the  Passage  Charle- 
magne and  the  Church  of  St.  Paul,  regular  Jewry  .  .  . 
that  tangle  of  streets  .  .  .  an  amazing  Paris  .  .  . 
such  houses,  such  heads,  a  veritable  gabble  of  Hebrew 


PARIS  WITH  ALPHONSE  DAUDET       99 

and  Alsatian;  shops,  lairs  of  old-clothes  dealers,  piled 
that  high  with  rags  before  every  door,  old  women  sort- 
ing them  with  their  hooked  noses,  or  stripping  off  the 
covers  of  the  old  umbrellas;  and  the  dogs!  the  vermin! 
the  smells !  a  regular  Ghetto  of  the  Middle  Ages,  swarm- 
ing in  houses  of  that  period,  iron  balconies,  tall  windows 
cut  into  lofts.*'  Again,  when  Sephora  went  there  for 
the  purpose  of  submitting  to  her  father  the  plans  for 
the  great  stroke  by  which  the  two  hundred  million 
francs  of  the  Republic  of  Illyria  were  to  be  diverted 
into  her  own  lap,  she  found  her  youth  coming  back  to 
her  in  that  curious  old  quarter  where  each  street  bore 
on  its  corner  the  names  of  its  noted  merchants,  names 
that  had  not  changed  for  years.  In  passing  through 
the  black  archway  which  serves  as  an  entrance  to  the 
Rue  Eginhard  from  the  Rue  Saint-Paul,  "she  encoun- 
tered the  long  robe  of  a  rabbi  on  his  way  to  the  neighbour- 
ing synagogue;  two  steps  farther  on  was  a  rat-catcher 
with  his  pole  and  his  plank,  to  which  hung  the  hairy 
corpses,  a  type  of  old  Paris  no  longer  to  be  seen  except 
in  this  tangle  of  mouldy  buildings,  where  all  the  rats 
in  the  city  have  their  headquarters;  and,  at  the  door  of 
two  or  three  shops,  comprising  the  whole  street,  and 
where  the  shutters  were  just  being  taken  down,  she  saw 
the  same  old  garments  hanging  in  a  mass,  and  heard  the 
same  Hebraic  and  Teutonic  gabble,  so  that  when,  hav- 
ing crossed  the  low  porch  of  the  paternal  domicile, 
the  little  courtyard,  and  the  four  steps  leading  up 
to  the  shop,  she  pulled  the  string  of  the  cracked  bell. 
It  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  fifteen  years  less  upon  her 
shoulders." 


loo       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Of  all  Daudet's  books,  "Les  Rois  en  Exil"  was  the 
one  with  which  he  had  the  most  difficulty,  the  one 
which,  in  the  stage  of  title  and  vague  outline,  he  carried 
longest  in  his  head.  In  his  search  for  models  and  for 
accurate  information  he  was  obliged  to  press  into  ser- 
vice all  his  acquaintances  from  the  top  to  the  bottom 
of  the  social  ladder.  He  interviewed  the  upholsterers 
who  furnished  the  mansions  of  exiled  kings,  and  the 
great  noblemen  who  visited  these  homes  socially  and 
diplomatically.  He  pored  over  the  records  of  the 
police-court  and  the  bills  of  tradesmen,  going  in  this 
way  to  the  bottom  of  those  royal  existences,  discovering 
instances  of  proud  destitution,  of  heroic  devotion  side 
by  side  with  manias,  infirmities,  tarnished  honour,  and 
seared  consciences.  It  was  for  a  long  time  believed 
that  the  King  and  Queen  of  Holland  were  the  originals 
of  Christian  and  Frederica  of  Illyria.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  they  were  made  from  odds  and  ends.  Elysee 
Meraut,  however,  was  drawn  from  the  life — one  Constant 
Therion,  whom  Daudet  used  to  meet  from  time  to  time 
in  the  early  days — a  young  man  who  was  forever  coming 
out  of  book-stalls,  or  burying  his  nose  in  old  volumes 
in  front  of  the  shops  that  surround  the  Odeon;  "a  long, 
dishevelled  devil,  with  a  peculiar  trick,  constantly 
repeated,  like  the  spasms  of  the  St.  Vitus*s  dance,  of  ad- 
justing his  spectacles  on  a  flat,  open  sensual  nose  in- 
stinct with  love  of  life."  To  the  figure  of  this  strange 
Bohemian,  who  used  to  stalk  about  the  Quartier,  shout- 
ing his  monarchical  opinions,  Daudet  brought  the  im- 
pression of  his  own  southern  childhood.  **It  occurred 
to  me  to  make  him  a  countryman  of  mine  own,  from 


PARIS  WITH  ALPHONSE  DAUDET      loi 

Nimes,  from  that  hard-working  hourgade  from  which 
all  my  father's  workmen  came:  to  place  in  his  bedroom 
that  red  seal,  *  Fides,  SpeSy  which  I  had  seen  in  the 
house  of  my  own  parents  where  we  used  to  sing  'Five 
Henri  F'l"  Meraut  having  been  invented,  Daudet 
began  to  study  out  the  problem  of  how  he  could  be  in- 
troduced into  the  royal  household.  The  idea  came  of 
making  him  the  tutor  of  a  prince;  hence,  Zara.  And 
while  at  work  on  this  part  of  the  book  an  accident  took 
place  in  the  family  of  a  friend,  a  child  struck  in  the 
eye  by  a  bullet  from  a  parlour  rifle  suggested  the  idea 
of  the  poor  kingmaker  destroying  his  own  work. 

Looking  down  on  the  broad  Avenue  des  Champs- 
Elysees,  on  the  northern  side,  near  the  Rond-Point 
de  TEtoile,  there  is  a  balcony  before  which  the  present 
writer,  whenever  he  happens  to  be  in  that  section  of 
Paris,  never  fails  to  stop.  It  was  on  that  balcony,  in 
one  of  the  most  memorable  of  all  Alphonse  Daudet 's 
delightful  short  tales,  "Le  Siege  de  Berlin,"  a  story 
which,  incidentally,  was  later  reflected  in  certain 
episodes  in  Miss  Ellen  Glasgow's  American  novel, 
"The  Descendant,"  that  Colonel  Jouve,  old  cuirassier 
of  the  First  Empire,  fell  dead  after  his  terrible  cry  "To 
arms!  To  arms!  The  Prussians!"  The  veteran  of 
the  old  wars,  come  to  Paris  at  the  outbreak  of  the  con- 
flict of  1870,  for  the  purpose  of  witnessing  the  return 
of  the  victorious  French  troops,  is  gravelyjstricken  at  the 
first  bulletin  of  disaster.  To  save  him  those  about  him 
invent  an  imaginary  campaign,  which  carries  the  Tri- 
color slowly  but  steadily  toward  Berlin.  The  sound  of 
the  guns  when  Paris  is  invested  is  interpreted  as  salutes 


I02       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

fired  at  the  Invalides  in  celebration  of  new  victories 
on  German  soil.  Complacently  consuming  the  delica- 
cies before  him  he  regales  with  stories  of  eating  horse 
meat  during  the  terrible  retreat  from  Moscow  the  de- 
voted grand-daughter  who  for  weeks  has  eaten  nothing 
else.  Then  his  ears  catch  the  words  "They  enter  to- 
morrow," and  thinking  that  it  means  the  return  of  the 
French,  he  steals  out  on  the  balcony,  clad  in  all  the 
antiquated  but  glorious  toggery  of  an  old  cuirassier  of 
Milhaud,  to  see  the  helmets  of  the  advancing  Uhlans, 
and  to  hear  the  strains  of  the  triumphant  march  of 
Schubert.  How  pregnant  with  new  meaning  that 
little  tale  is  to-day!  In  a  building  not  one  hundred 
yards  from  the  structure  to  which  belongs  the  balcony 
where  Colonel  Jouve  died,  the  writer,  in  April,  1917,  had 
the  good  fortune  to  witness,  as  a  guest,  the  celebration 
of  his  country's  entry  into  the  conflict  the  issue  of  which 
has  restored  to  the  France  of  the  old  cuirassier  the  well- 
beloved  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

In  the  Champs-filysees  quarter  Sephora  Leemans 
kept  a  pension  before  she  became  the  legitimate  spouse 
of  Tom  Levis,  more  English  than  any  Englishman 
possibly  could  be  for  the  reason  that  he  had  been  born 
Narcisse  Poitou,  the  son  of  an  upholsterer  in  the  Rue 
de  rOrillon;  and  Fanny  Legrand  served  as  manager 
and  accountant  for  a  like  establishment  belonging  to 
the  loathsome  Rosario,  for  a  period  from  Jean  Gaussin's 
departure  for  the  home  of  his  childhood  to  the  time 
when  they  resumed  their  life  a  deux  in  the  little  cottage 
in  Chaville.  Also  in  the  neighbourhood  was  the  Gym- 
nase  Moronval,  where  Jack  de  Barancy  (Jack)  passed 


PARIS  WITH  ALPHONSE  DAUDET      103 

so  many  miserable  months  of  his  childhood,  and  which 
witnessed  the  tragedy  of  the  little  King  of  Dahomey. 
The  Gymnase  Moronval,  which  may  be  called  the 
Dotheboys  Hall  of  French  fiction,  and  which  perhaps 
owed  as  much  to  the  Wackford  Squeers  school  of 
"Nicholas  Nickleby"  as  the  little  Desiree  of  "Fromont 
et  Risler"  owed  to  the  doll's  dressmaker  of  "Our 
Mutual  Friend,"  was  definitely  placed  at  25  Avenue 
Montaigne.  There  was  the  flavour  of  Dickens  in  the 
Daudet  denunciation:  "If  the  Gymnase  Moronval 
still  exists,  as  I  like  to  believe,  I  desire  to  call  the  at- 
tention of  the  health  commission  to  the  dormitory  of 
that  respectable  factory  as  the  craziest,  unhealthiest, 
dampest  hole  in  which  children  have  ever  been  forced 
to  sleep.  Imagine  a  long  ground-floor  building,  win- 
dowless,  lighted  only  from  above  by  a  glass  in  the  roof, 
and  scented  with  an  indelible  odour  of  collodion  and 
ether,  for  in  other  days  it  had  been  used  for  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  photographer's  materials.  The  aff"air  was 
situated  at  the  rear  end  of  one  of  those  Parisian  gardens 
surrounded  by  great  gloomy  walls  overgrown  with  ivy, 
covering  with  mold  everything  over  which  it  creeps. 
The  dormitory  was  at  the  rear  of  a  stately  hotel,  close 
to  a  stable,  filled  all  day  with  the  noise  of  horses'  hoofs, 
and  the  sound  of  a  pump  always  spouting,  which  com- 
pleted the  water-soaked  appearance  of  this  rheumatic 
hole,  its  walls  bordered  half  way  up  by  a  sinister  band 
of  green  like  the  water  line  of  a  ship."  Whatever  may 
have  been  its  state  when  Daudet  wrote  that,  to-day 
it  is  as  irrevocably  dead  as  the  original  of  Moronval 
the  mulatto,  who  had  a  share  in  the  management  of 


104       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

the  Revue  Coloniale^  and  was  in  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties sometime  after  1870. 

As  painstaking  as  Dickens  in  the  work  of  finding 
the  street  and  the  very  house  for  his  characters,  in  the 
matter  of  his  living  models  Daudet  went  to  an  extreme 
to  which  Dickens  had  never  dared  to  go.  His  novels 
were,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  term,  romans  a  clef. 
The  accusation  of  ingratitude  caused  him  in  later  life 
to  attempt  to  obscure  the  association  of  the  Due  de 
Mora,  of  "Le  Nabab,"  with  the  Due  de  Mornay,  the 
half  brother  of  the  Third  Napoleon,  and  Daudet's 
patron  when  the  novelist  was  young.  But  his  was,  at 
best,  a  lame  evasion.  All  the  characters  of  "Fromont 
Jeune  et  Risler  Aine"  had  originals.  Planus  the 
cashier  was  really  named  Scherer.  *'I  knew  him,'* 
Daudet  has  written,  "in  a  banking  house  in  the  Rue 
de  Londres  where  he  would  stand  in  front  of  his  well- 
filled  safe,  shaking  his  head  and  murmuring  in  his 
German  accent  with  tragi-comic  distress  *Ja!  ja! 
money,  much  money;  put  I  haf  no  gonfidence.' "  There 
was  also  an  original  of  Sidonie  and  her  parents'  home. 
The  true  Sidonie,  however,  was  not  as  black  as  the 
heroine  of  the  book.  Risler  was  a  memory  of  Daudet's 
childhood,  an  Alsatian  factory  draughtsman,  who 
worked  for  the  author's  father.  Daudet  transformed 
him  from  an  Alsatian  into  a  Swiss  in  order  not  to  in- 
troduce into  the  book  a  sentimental  patriotism.  The 
immortal  Delobelle  was  the  summing  up  of  all  that 
Daudet  knew  about  actors,  their  manias,  the  difficulty 
they  find  in  recovering  their  footing  in  life  when  they 
go  off  the  stage,  in  maintaining  an  individuality  in  so 


PARIS  WITH  ALPHONSE  DAUDET      105 

many  varying  masks.  Once,  at  the  time  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  the  novehst  attended  the  funeral  of  a 
great  actor's  daughter.  There  he  found  all  the  details 
that  he  introduced  later  at  the  death  of  little  Desiree — 
**the  typical  entrees  of  the  guests,  their  pump-like  action 
in  shaking  hands,  varied  according  to  the  practices  of 
their  respective  roles,  the  tear  caught  in  the  comer  of 
the  eye  and  looked  at  on  the  end  of  the  glove."  In 
the  original  scheme  of  the  book  Desiree  was  to  have 
been  a  doll's  dressmaker,  a  trade  characteristic  of  the 
noisy,  humming  Marais.  But  someone  pointed  out 
that  that  would  be  a  Httle  too  close  to  the  character 
in  "Our  Mutual  Friend,"  so  Daudet  searched  many 
dark  houses,  climbed  many  cold  stairways  with  a  rail 
of  rope,  until,  one  day,  in  the  Rue  du  Temple,  on  a 
leather  sign  in  faded  gold  letters,  he  read  the  words: 
"birds  and  insects  for  ornament."] 
Despite  all  that  Daudet  had  to  say  to  the  contrary, 
tout  Paris  was  very  nearly  right,  when,  at  the  time  of 
the  appearance  of  "Numa  Roumestan,"  it  insisted 
that  the  character  of  the  hero  had  been,  in  a  measure, 
drawn  from  Gambetta.  But  also  scraps  and  fragments 
of  other  men  went  to  the  making  of  Numa.  Others 
besides  Gambetta  were  recognized  or  recognized  them- 
selves in  the  character.  Numa  Baragnon,  a  Southerner 
and  an  ex-minister,  misled  by  the  similarity  of  Christian 
names,  was  one  of  the  first  to  protest.  The  tamhour- 
inairey  Valmajour,  was  suggested  by  a  musician  named 
Buisson,  who  came  to  Paris  with  a  letter  to  Daudet 
from  Frederic  Mistral.  It  was  from  Buisson's  lips 
that  the  novelist  heard  the  little  tale  beginning:  "It 


io6       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

came  to  me  at  night."  The  house  In  Nimes  in  which 
Numa  was  bom  was  one  in  which  Daudet  lived  as  a 
child;  the  Brothers'  school  of  the  book  was  one  of  his 
earliest  memories.  Among  the  men  and  women  who 
figure  in  "Sapho,"  Caoudal  bears  more  than  a  resem- 
blance to  the  great  Gerome. 


VIII.    BOHEMIAN  TRAILS 

The  Migration  of  Bohemia — "La  Vie  de  Bohemey"  and 
"Trilby" — Henry  Murger  and  His  Contemporaries — Youth 
and  Age — A  Bohemians  Expense  Book  of  the  'Forties — 
**  Trilby'^ — The  Studio  in  the  Place  Saint-Anatole  des  Arts — Du 
Maurier  and  Henry  James — Du  Maurier  in  Paris  and  Ant- 
werp— Trails  of  the  "Musketeers  of  the  Brush" — Originals 
of  the  Characters. 

ON  THE  subject  of  Bohemian  Paris,  books  are 
likely  to  be  written  till  the  end  of  time.  It 
does  not  matter  greatly  that  the  Bohemianism 
that  used  to  be  associated  with  the  Latin  Quarter  of  the 
rive  gauche  has  of  recent  years  found  its  way  up  the 
slope  that  leads  to  the  sacred  summit  of  Montmartre; 
that  the  "Louise'*  of  the  later  opera  has  looked  down 
on  the  lights  of  Paris  from  the  heights  to  the  north, 
whereas  the  "Mimis"  and  "Musettes"  of  "La  Boheme" 
fluttered  and  frivolled  their  light  lives  in  streets  nearer 
the  murky  waters  of  the  Seine.  For  Bohemia  is  less  a 
region  of  definite  situation  and  boundaries  than  a  state 
of  mind,  a  memory  of  youth  and  of  the  glamour  of  youth. 
The  extent  of  Villon's  Bohemianism  is  not  to  be  meas- 
ured by  the  particular  tripot  in  which  he  thieved  and 
boozed;  nor  that  of  Verlaine  by  the  location  of  the  cafe 
from  which  he  surveyed  the  passing  sidewalk  world 
through  absinthe-glazed  eyes. 

107  ' 


io8       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

To  American  readers  there  are  two  works  of  fiction 
dealing  with  Bohemia  that  long  have  stood  out  above 
all  others.  They  are  the  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Boheme" 
of  Henry  Murger,  and  the  "Trilby"  of  George  Du 
Maurier;  and  with  those  books  and  their  stories,  and 
the  stories  of  the  men  who  wrote  them,  and  the  Paris 
that  is  reflected  in  their  pages,  this  chapter  has  to  do. 
Though  written  many  years  apart — the  "Scenes  de  la 
Vie  de  Boheme"  was  published  in  1848  and  "Trilby" 
in  1894 — there  is  not  a  great  difference  in  the  setting 
of  the  scene  of  the  two  tales,  for  it  was  the  Paris  of  the 
'forties  that  Murger  gilded  with  his  fancy,  while  Du 
Maurier,  taking  to  novel  spinning  when  almost  sixty, 
drew  upon  the  Paris  that  he  had  known  in  his  student 
youth,  the  Second-Empire  Paris  of  the  late  'fifties. 
In  a  word,  the  "Vie  de  Boheme"  is  a  tale  of  '48; 
"Trilby"  a  tale  of  '58.  First,  let  us  take  up  the 
earlier,  and,  from  the  American  point  of  view,  less 
widely  read  book. 

Henry  Murger  was  born  in  February,  1822 — according 
to  some,  in  Paris;  according  to  others,  in  Savoy. 
Among  the  French  men  of  letters  regarded  as  his  con- 
temporaries he  was  the  youngest;  twenty-three  years 
younger  than  Balzac;  twenty  years  younger  than  Victor 
Hugo;  twenty  years  younger  than  Dumas  pere;  eighteen 
years  younger  than  Sainte-Beuve;  twelve  years  younger 
than  Gautier  and  Alfred  de  Musset;  and  almost  the 
same  age  as  Emile  Augier  and  the  younger  Dumas, 
whom  we  are  inclined  to  regard  as  belonging  to  a  later 
literary  generation.  Among  these  men  the  creator 
of  the  "Comedie  Humaine"  seems  to  have  had  the 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  109 

greatest  influence  on  Murger*s  work.  In  the  second 
part  of  "Illusions  Perdues"  Balzac  told  of  a  group  of 
young  literary  men  and  painters,  who,  disdaining  to 
resort  to  the  customary  self-exploitation,  plodded  on  to 
success,  silently  and  indefatigably.  In  "Les  Buveurs 
d'Eau,"  after  the  "Vie  de  Boheme"  his  best  book, 
Murger  drew  the  reverse  of  the  picture,  frankly  ac- 
knowledging the  inspiration.  Incidentally,  it  was  in 
the  Rue  du  Doyenne,  the  narrow  ravine  between  the 
Louvre  and  the  Place  du  Carrousel,  which  Balzac  de- 
scribed so  powerfully  in  "Cousine  Bette,"  that  Murger 
knew  the  cenacle  that  he  introduced  in  his  most  famous 
work. 

Murger's  origin  was  of  the  humblest.  His  father, 
a  concierge  and  tailor,  wished  to  bring  up  his  son  to  hard 
manual  labour.  But  the  mother  intervened,  with  the 
result  that  the  boy  had  a  few  years*  schooling,  after 
which  he  was  sent  into  a  lawyer's  office.  After  a  few 
months  at  this  work,  which  he  detested,  he  became 
the  secretary  of  Count  Tolstoy,  a  Russian  nobleman, 
representing  his  country  officially.  Forty  francs  a 
month  was  the  pay,  and  Murger  held  the  position  long 
after  it  had  become  a  sinecure,  and  he  entered  his  em- 
ployer's house  only  to  draw  the  salary.  He  liked  that 
well  enough,  but  a  day  came  when  the  Russian  was 
inconsiderate  enough  to  call  for  his  services.  So  Mur- 
ger lost  his  forty  francs  a  month  and  became  a  thorough- 
going literary  Bohemian. 

There  are  few  finer  "special  articles"  in  any  language 
than  the  preface  that  Murger  wrote  for  the  "Scenes 
de  la  Vie  de  Boheme."    In  it  he  traced  the  history 


no       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

of  Bohemianism  from  the  times  of  the  Grecian  vaga- 
bonds who  went  about  singing  of  the  loves  of  Helen 
and  the  fall  of  Troy,  through  the  ages  of  the  Trouba- 
dours, the  century  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  the  days 
of  Francois  Villon,  and  down  to  the  seventeenth,  the 
eighteenth,  and  the  early  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Bohemia  he  defined  as  "the  stage  of  art  life,  the  ante- 
room of  the  Academy,  the  Hospital,  or  the  Morgue.'* 
Of  Bohemians  and  their  ways  he  wrote: 

To  achieve  their  aims,  all  roads  are  good,  since  they  know  how  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  chances  of  the  way.  Neither  rain  nor  dust, 
neither  shadow  nor  sunshine — nothing  stops  these  bold  adventurers 
whose  very  vices  are  lined  with  virtues.  Their  wits  are  spurred  by 
their  ambition,  which  sounds  the  charge  and  urges  them  to  the 
assault  of  the  Future.  With  them  existence  itself  is  a  work  of 
genius;  a  daily  problem  to  be  solved  by  the  most  daring  mathe- 
matics. These  men  could  borrow  money  from  Harpagon,  and  find 
truffles  in  the  skull  of  Medusa.  At  need  they  know  how  to  practise 
the  abstinence  of  an  anchorite,  but  let  fortune  smile  upon  them  for  a 
minute  and  they  cannot  find  windows  enough  out  of  which  to  throw 
their  money.  Then  with  the  last  crown  gone,  they  begin  again  to 
dine  at  the  table  d'hote  of  chance,  where  their  places  are  always  set, 
spending  their  days  in  the  pursuit  of  that  elusive  animal,  the  five- 
franc  piece. 

When  Murger  died,  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine,  he  was 
already  an  old  man,  bald,  broken  down,  prematurely 
worn  out  by  the  hardship  and  dissipation  of  his  youth. 
Perhaps  the  end  was  hurried  by  the  very  fear  of  that 
old  age  which  he  found  so  ridiculous  and  pilloried  so 
savagely  in  his  books.  Whenever  a  man  who  has 
passed  the  twenties  appears  in  his  pages  he  is  a  con- 
HergCy  or  a  grocer,  or  a  bootmaker,  or  a  provincial,  or 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  in 

worse  still,  a  proprietor  after  the  rent — always  a 
creditor  of  some  kind  and  usually  a  hypocrite  to  boot, 
whose  mission  is  to  serve  as  a  foil  and  butt  of  glowing, 
ardent  youth.  Better  to  be  young  and  hungry  in  a 
garret  than  in  a  palace  to  feel  one's  self  to  be  shpping 
down  the  hill.  Recognition  and  comparative  comfort 
were  the  portion  of  his  own  later  life.  But  that  could 
not  shut  out  the  thought,  half  melancholy  and  half 
hysterical,  that  the  years  were  gliding  swiftly  by; 
that  his  hand  was  losing  the  strength  to  grasp  the 
shadow  of  the  Bohemia  that  was  part  memory  and 
part  imagination. 

Yet  he  worked  to  the  end.  His  preference  for  poetry 
was  so  strong  that  he  would  seldom  yield  to  necessity 
and  write  prose.  He  was  always  a  slow  and  capricious 
worker.  In  the  early  days  his  pages  were  wrought  in 
the  quiet  of  the  night,  under  the  stimulation  of  cup 
after  cup  of  coffee,  usually  in  bed  for  the  want  of  a  fire. 
The  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Boheme'*  appeared  first  in 
the  Corsairey  Murger  receiving  fifteen  francs  for  each 
instalment;  in  all,  twenty  dollars,  in  round  figures,  was 
the  price  paid  for  a  masterpiece  which  Jules  Janin 
called  "a  first  chapter  in  the  code  of  youth."  The  life 
of  the  years  preceding  the  publication,  the  life  of  which 
the  book  is  the  lyric  expression,  is  best  conveyed  by  the 
following  paragraphs  taken  from  a  letter  written  to 
Murger  by  his  fellow  Bohemian,  Champfleury: 

Our  income  was  seventy  francs  a  month.  But  we  had  confidence 
in  the  future.  We  rented  a  small  apartment  in  the  Rue  Vaugirard, 
which  cost  us  three  hundred  francs  a  year.  You  brought  in  six 
plates,  a  Shakespeare,  the  works  of  Victor  Hugo,  a  bureau  of  in- 


112       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

calculable  age,  and  a  Phrygian  cap.  By  a  strange  chance  I  was  the 
owner  of  two  mattresses,  a  bedstead,  one  hundred  and  eighty  vol- 
umes, two  small  chairs,  a  table,  and  a  human  skull.  We  seldom  went 
out,  we  smoked  continually  and  worked  a  good  deal. 

The  days  of  our  greatest  misery  came.  We  decided  that  as  soon 
as  our  income  was  drawn  we  would  keep  an  account  of  expenditures. 
We  were  wonderfully  honest  at  the  beginning  of  every  month.  Under 
the  date  of  November  ist,  I  read:  "Paid  to  Mme.  Bastien  for  to- 
bacco, two  francs."  We  also  paid  our  grocer,  our  coal  man,  and  the 
restaurant.  The  first  day  of  the  month  was  evidently  a  revel.  I 
find:  "Spent  at  the  cafe  five  sous."  On  the  same  day  you  bought 
fifteen  sous'  worth  of  pipes.  On  November  2nd  you  pay  an  im- 
portant sum,  five  francs,  to  the  washerwoman.  On  November  3rd 
you  decide  that  as  long  as  the  seventy  francs  last  we  are  to  do  our 
own  cooking.  In  consequence  you  buy  a  soup  pot,  fifteen  sous, 
some  vegetables  and  some  laurel  leaves.  In  your  capacity  of  poet 
you  were  over  partial  to  laurel,  our  soup  was  constantly  afflicted 
with  it.    We  also  laid  in  potatoes;  sugar,  tobacco,  and  coffee. 

Profanity  and  gnashing  of  teeth  marked  the  inscribing  in  our 
book  of  the  expenses  of  November  4th.  On  the  next  day  we  lent 
an  enormous  sum,  thirty-five  sous,  to  G — ,  who,  it  appears,  has  de- 
cided upon  us  as  his  regular  bankers, — the  house  of  Murger  and 
Company.  Until  November  8th  we  made  the  addition  at  the  foot 
of  the  ledger.  By  that  time  forty  francs  sixty-one  centimes  had 
disappeared  On  the  i6th  we  were  compelled  to  call  on  M.  Credit. 
M.  Credit  went  to  the  grocer's,  the  tobacconist's,  the  coal  man's. 
He  was  not  very  badly  received;  assuming  your  form,  he  was  very 
successful  with  the  grocer's  daughter.  Did  M.  Credit  die  on  the 
17th?  I  find  noted:  "From  Prince  Albert  three  francs."  On 
November  19th  we  sold  some  books. 

The  expense  book  of  which  Champfleury  wrote  dealt 
with  the  year  1843.  It  apparently  indicated  a  period 
of  comparative  affluence.  The  following  year  they  were 
forced  to  return  to  their  old  attic  in  the  Rue  du  Doy- 
enne, and  the  society  of  Schaunard,  Colline,  Marcel, 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  113 

and  Barbemuche,  all  of  whom  have  been  identified. 
The  Rodolphe  of  the  tale  was  Murger  himself.  The 
band  made  its  headquarters  at  the  Cafe  Momus,  de- 
scribed at  length  in  the  **Vie  de  Boheme,"  and  by  their 
noise  and  eccentricity  of  attire  and  deportment  speed- 
ily drove  away  the  proprietor's  respectable  clients. 
Of  the  Cafe  Momus  seemingly  no  trace  now  exists. 
It  once  had  actual  existence  in  a  side  street  near  the 
church  of  Saint-Germain  I'Auxerrois,  but  the  structure 
was  long  ago  swept  away  in  the  vast  scheme  of  city 
improvement.  To  indicate  the  Paris  of  the  "Scenes 
de  la  Vie  de  Boheme"  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  beyond 
the  opening  pages  of  the  story,  which  treat  of  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  famous  society.  Schaunard,  the 
"Great  Musician,"  is  evicted  on  the  morning  of  April 
8th  for  non-payment  of  his  rent.  Marcel,  the  "Great 
Painter,"  moves  into  the  vacated  apartment.  Schau- 
nard spends  the  day  wandering  about  Paris.  In  the 
course  of  his  adventures  he  forms  the  acquaintance  of 
Rodolphe,  the  "Great  Poet,"  and  Colline,  the  "Great 
Philosopher."  The  three  spend  the  evening  in  a  drink- 
ing bout.  When  they  leave  the  cafe  at  midnight  a 
thunderstorm  comes  up.  Colline  and  Rodolphe  live 
at  the  other  end  of  Paris.  Schaunard,  from  whose 
fuddled  mind  all  memory  of  the  events  of  the  morning 
has  passed,  invites  them  to  share  his  apartment. 

Shut  up  in  Paris,  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  dwelling 
as  did  his  Rodolphe,  on  the  sixth  floor,  "because  there 
was  no  seventh,"  Murger  drew  his  inspiration  from  the 
flowers  growing  in  pots  along  the  window  sill  over  the 


114       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

way.  He  would  have  liked  to  have  roamed  through 
great  forests,  to  have  listened  to  the  sobbing  of  wood- 
land winds,  to  the  roar  of  the  sea  of  which  he  had  read. 
Denied  this,  he  turned  to  the  ticketed  trees  in  the  Tuil- 
eries  Gardens;  the  plash  of  the  Luxembourg  fountains. 
For  him,  as  for  Balzac,  the  river  Seine  was  full  of  mys- 
tery. He  would  have  liked  to  have  followed  its  winding 
length  to  the  beyond  of  his  imagination.  He  felt 
strongly  the  magic  of  names.  *' Bagdad,"  "Barbary," 
suggested  magnificent  daydreams.  But  at  hand  was 
the  wretched  grenier,  and  the  four  bare  walls  that 
limited  his  life,  and  the  fist  knocking  peremptorily  at 
the  door  was  probably  that  of  the  importunate  corner 
grocer. 

As  has  been  told,  the  "Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Boheme'* 
appeared  in  1848.  What  worlds  of  fancy  that  splendid 
decade  of  1840-50  opened  up!  Hugo  gave  us  "Notre 
Dame";  Dumas,  "The  Count  of  Monte  Cristo,"  and 
the  series  dealing  with  the  immortal  Musketeers;  Eu- 
gene Sue,  "Les  Mysteres  de  Paris,"  and  "Le  Juif 
Errant";  Balzac,  the  books  of  the  "Comedie  Humaine" 
known  as  the  "Parens  Pauvres."  To  the  decade  Eng- 
lish fiction  owes  "Vanity  Fair'*-  and  "Pendennis"; 
"David  Copperfield,"  "Dombey  and  Son,"  Martin 
Chuzzlewit,"  and  "Barnaby  Rudge";  "The  Caxtons," 
"Night  and  Morning,"  "Zanoni,"  "Harold,"  and  "The 
Last  of  the  Barons";  the  American  Cooper  wrought 
"The  Pathfinder"  and  "The  Deerslayer"  of  the  Lea- 
ther Stocking  Tales.  What  giants  those  men  were! 
What  giant  cudgels  they  wielded!  What  Gargantuan 
banquets  they  set  before  their  readers! 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  115 

There  are  many  roads  leading  to  the  Latin  Quarter 
of  Paris.  But  the  natural  gateway  is  the  Place  Saint- 
Michel,  which  is  reached  from  the  right  bank  by  cross- 
ing first  the  Pont  au  Change,  then  the  Cite,  by  way  of 
the  broad  Boulevard  du  Palais,  and  then  the  Pont  Saint- 
Michel.  Just  beyond  the  Place  Saint-Michel,  veering 
to  the  right,  there  is  a  little  open  place.  It  was  there, 
as  told  in  George  du  Manner's  "Trilby,"  that  "Taffy," 
"the  Laird,"  and  "Little  Billee"  had  their  studio,  to 
which  Trilby  went  with  her  cry  of  "Milk  below!",  and 
Svengali  made  beautiful  music  and  played  his  weird, 
hypnotic  tricks.  For  the  Place  Saint-Anatole  des  Arts  of 
the  story  was  in  reality  the  Place  Saint-Andre  des  Arts. 
No  American  in  Paris  who  recalls  the  charm  of  Mr.  du 
Maurier's  tale,  which,  twenty-five  years  ago,  thrilled 
in  a  manner  as  perhaps  no  other  novel  has  ever  thrilled, 
can  afford  not  to  make  the  brief  pilgrimage  that  is  a 
matter  of  so  few  steps,  and  is  so  rich  in  awakened  memo- 
ries. For,  in  addition  to  the  story  itself,  what  better 
guides  to  the  history  and  the  romance  of  the  quarter 
could  one  ask  than  the  ghosts  of  the  "Three  Musketeers 
of  the  Brush"?  The  Place  Saint-Andre  des  Arts  has 
changed  since  Second  Empire  days;  the  old  houses,  and 
the  cracked,  dingy,  discoloured  walls,  with  mysterious 
windows  and  rusty  iron  windows  of  great  antiquity 
that  set  Little  Billee  dreaming  dreams  of  mediaeval 
French  love  and  wickedness,  have  long  since  vanished. 
But  still,  one  hundred  yards  or  so  away,  is  the  arm  of 
the  river,  and  yonder,  as  of  old,  are  the  towers  of  Notre 
Dame,  and  behind,  the  ominous  Morgue. 

It  is  as  interesting  a  setting  of  the  scene  of  fiction  as 


ii6       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

one  readily  recalls.  Other  ghosts  of  romance  besides 
Little  Billee  mooning,  and  TafFy  performing  feats  of 
strength,  and  the  Laird,  reciting  scraps  of  Thackeray's 
"Ballad  of  the  Bouillabaisse,'*  and  painting  Spanish 
toreadors,  and  Miss  O'Ferrall  in  the  gray  overcoat  of  a 
French  infantry  soldier,  and  Svengali  accompanying 
her  as  she  attempts  what  she  conceives  to  be  the  tune 
of  "Ben  Bolt,"  people  the  structure  that  the  Pilgrim 
of  to-day  happens  to  select  as  having  housed  the  old 
studio.  There  is  the  pathetic  Gecko;  and  Durien  sing- 
ing Chagrin  d'amour^  and  Plaisir  d'amour;  and  the 
tipsy  Zou  Zou  and  Dodor  at  cock-fighting;  and  Car- 
negie, Vincent,  Lorimer,  and  Antony,  the  Swiss,  who, 
in  the  first  version,  was  Joe  Sibley,  to  the  furious  in- 
dignation of  the  American  painter  Whistler,  and  Mrs. 
Bagot,  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Bagot  (a  most  unpleasant 
person),  who  crossed  the  Channel  to  save  Little  Billee 
from  the  happiness  that  a  suitable  mesalliance  would 
have  brought  him.  It  cannot  be  that  that  tale  which 
once  so  stirred  all  hearts,  especially  the  hearts  of  those 
just  coming  up  to  twenty  years,  is  a  forgotten  tale;  that 
the  new  generation  knows  it  not!  In  the  hey-day  of  its 
fame,  pedantic  and  dull-witted  smugness  fleered  at  it 
as  "as  great  a  violation  of  reality  and  verisimilitude 
as  Murger's  *Vie  de  Boheme'."  But  into  it,  Du  Mau- 
rier,  looking  back  from  the  ripeness  of  years  to  his  rapin 
days,  breathed  all  the  spirit  of  the  lines:  "To  drain  all 
life's  quintessence  in  an  hour,  give  me  the  days  when 
I  was  twenty-one!" 

One  day  George  du  Maurier,  already  famous  as  the 
Punch  draughtsman,  was  walking  in  the  High  Street 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  117 

of  Bayswater  in  company  with  Henry  James.  In  the 
course  of  the  talk  James  spoke  of  the  difficulty  he  had 
in  finding  plots  for  his  stories.  "Plots!"  exclaimed  Du 
Maurier,  "I  am  full  of  plots."  He  went  on  to  outline 
the  story  of  "Trilby."  "But  you  ought  to  write  that 
story, "  said  James.  "  I  can't  write.  I  have  never  writ- 
ten, "  was  the  answer.  "  If  you  like  the  plot  so  much 
you  may  have  it."  But  James  would  not  take  it,  saying 
that  it  was  too  valuable  a  present,  and  that  Du  Maurier 
must  write  the  story  himself.  On  reaching  home  that 
night  Du  Maurier  set  to  work.  But  it  was  not  on 
"Trilby."  By  the  next  morning  he  had  written  the 
first  two  numbers  of  "Peter  Ibbetson."  It  seemed,  he 
said,  all  to  flow  from  his  pen  in  a  full  stream.  But  he 
thought  it  must  be  poor  stuff,  and  he  determined  to 
look  for  an  omen  to  learn  whether  any  success  would 
attend  the  new  departure.  So  he  walked  out  into  the 
garden,  and  the  very  first  thing  that  he  saw  was  a  large 
wheel-barrow,  and  that  comforted  him  and  reassured 
him,  for,  it  may  be  remembered,  there  is  a  wheel-barrow 
in  the  first  chapter  of  the  story.  "Peter  Ibbetson,"  by 
the  way,  was  written  first  in  English,  then  translated 
into  French,  and  then  back  again  into  English.  Just 
as  America  was  later  to  set  rolling  the  ball  of  "Trilby's  " 
popularity,  America  was  first  to  welcome  Du  Maurier 
in  the  role  of  novelist.  He  was  dining  with  an  American 
publisher  who  said :  "  I  hear,  Du  Maurier,  that  you  are 
writing  stories.  Won't  you  let  me  see  something?" 
So  "  Peter  [Ibbetson  "  was  sent  to  America  and  was  ac- 
cepted at  once. 
The  son  of  a  French  father  bom  in  London  and  an 


.118       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

English  mother,  George  Louis  Pamella  Busson  Du  Mau- 
rier  was  born  in  Paris  on  March  6,  1834.  The  elder  Du 
Maurier,  a  scientific  man,  designed  his  son  for  a  scien- 
tific career,  and  placed  him  as  a  pupil  in  the  Birkbeck 
Chemical  Laboratory  of  University  College.  But 
the  boy  had  little  liking  for  the  work,  and  spent  most 
of  his  time  drawing  caricatures.  His  ambition  at  the 
time  was  to  go  in  for  music  and  singing,  a  fact  which 
has  a  direct  bearing  on  the  "Trilby"  of  so  many  years 
later.  The  family  was  all  musical;  a  sister,  who  later 
married  Clement  Scott,  was  a  gifted  pianist,  and  the 
father  possessed  a  voice  of  such  rare  beauty  that  had 
he  taken  up  singing  as  a  profession  he  would  undoubt- 
edly have  been  one  of  the  greatest  singers  of  his  time. 
Perhaps  it  was  his  own'^sound  knowledge  of  the  art — in 
his^i^youth  he  had  studied  at  the  Paris  Conservatory — 
that  led  [him  to  discourage  all  musical  aspirations 
in  his  son.  So  denied  a  musical  career,  and  feeling 
himself  quite  unfitted  for  science,  the  boy  turned  to 
art. 

In  1856,  after  the  death  of  his  father,  George  Du 
Maurier  went  to  Paris  and  enrolled  himself  as  a  student 
in  the  Atelier  Gleyre.  The  Atelier  Gleyre  was  the  Atelier 
Carrel  of  "Trilby."  Those  were  the  joyous  Latin  Quar- 
ter days,  spent  in  the  society  of  Poynter,  Whistler, 
Armstrong,  Lamont,  and  others.  But  they  did  not 
last  long,  for  in  1857  the  Du  Maurier  family  went  to 
Antwerp,  and  there  George  worked  at  the  Antwerp 
Academy  under  Der  Kayser  and  Van  Lerius.  It  was 
on  a  day  in  Van  Lerius's  studio  that  the  great  tragedy 
of  his  life  took  place.    He  himself  has  described  it: 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  119 

I  was  drawing  from  a  model,  when  suddenly  the  girl's  head  seemed 
to  me  to  dwindle  to  the  size  of  a  walnut.  I  clapped  my  hand  over 
my  left  eye.  Had  I  been  mistaken?  I  could  see  as  well  as  ever. 
But  when  in  its  turn  I  covered  my  right  eye  I  knew  what  had  hap- 
pened. My  left  eye  had  failed  me;  it  might  be  altogether  lost.  It 
was  so  sudden  a  blow  that  I  was  as  thunderstruck.  Seeing  my  dis- 
may Van  Lerius  came  up  and  asked  me  what  might  be  the  matter; 
and  when  I  told  him  he  said  that  it  was  nothing,  that  he  had  had  that 
himself,  and  so  on.  And  a  doctor  whom  I  anxiously  consulted  that 
same  day  comforted  me,  and  said  that  the  accident  was  a  passing  one. 
However,  my  eye  grew  worse  and  worse,  and  the  fear  of  total  blind- 
ness beset  me  constantly. 

It  was  an  event  that  poisoned  all  of  Du  Maurier's 
existence.  In  the  spring  of  1859  he  heard  of  a  great 
specialist  who  lived  in  Diisseldorf,  and  went  to  see  him. 
The  specialist  examined  Du  Maurier's  eyes,  and  said 
that  while  the  left  eye  was  certainly  lost,  there  was  no 
reason  to  fear  losing  the  other.  But  to  the  end  of  his 
life  Du  Maurier  was  never  able  to  shake  off  entirely  the 
terrible  apprehension. 

This  is  hardly  the  place  to  deal  at  any  length  with 
the  long  years  of  achievement  between  the  rapin  days 
in  Paris  and  Antwerp,  and  thejtime,in  late' Hfe,  when,  with 
"Peter  Ibbetson,"  "Trilby,"  and  "The  Martian,"  he 
found  a  new  and  surprisingly  successful  metier.  Briefly: 
he  went  to  England  in  i860,  sharing  his  first  London 
lodging  with  "Jimmy"  Whistler.  His  first  Punch 
drawing  represented  Whistler  and  himself  entering  a 
photographer's  studio.  In  time  he  took  his  seat  at  the 
** Punch  Table" — the  seat  that  had  been  John  Leech's — 
and  began  the  long  labour  of  holding  up  the  mirror  to 
English  society  with  such  creations  as  Bunthorne,  Sir 


I20       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Georgeous  Midas,  Postlewaite,  and  Mrs.  Ponsonby- 
Tompkyns.  He  made  many  friends,  and  was  soon 
rubbing  elbows  intimately  with  all  that  was  best  in 
London's  art,  music,  and  letters.  But  he  came  a  little 
too  late  to  know  some  of  the  great  Victorians,  never 
seeing  Dickens  save  at  John  Leech's  funeral,  and  meeting 
his  great  literary  idol,  Thackeray,  upon  whose  style 
his  own  writing  style  was  modelled,  only  once. 

The  style,  from  hard  reading  of  Thackeray,  That 
is  to  be  understood.  But  whence  came  the  crafts- 
manship that  enabled  him,  full  armed,  to  enter  the  lists 
of  authorship?  That  puzzled  Du  Maurier  himself. 
He  was  talking  of  it  one  day  to  Anstey,  expressing  his 
amazement  at  the  success  of  his  books,  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  he  had  never  written  before.  "Never  writ- 
ten!" cried  Anstey.  "Why,  my  dear.Du  Maurier,  you 
have  been  writing  all  your  life,  and  the  best  of  writing 
practice  at  that.  Those  little  dialogues  of  yours,  which 
week  after  week  you  have  been  fitting  to  your  drawings 
in  Punchy  have  prepared  you  admirably.  It  was  pre- 
cis writing,  and  gave  you  conciseness,  and  repartee,  and 
appositeness,  and  the  best  qualities  of  the  writer  of 
fiction."  Very  likely  Anstey  was  right,  and  that  that 
was  the  secret.  For  Du  Maurier  was  seven  and  fifty 
years  of  age  before  his  first  novel,  "Peter  Ibbetson," 
was  given  to  the  world. 

But  to  return  to  the  Paris  trail.  The  Place  Saint-Ana- 
tole  des  Arts  was  the  Place  Saint-Andre  des  Arts,  and  the 
Atelier  Carrel  was  the  Atelier  Gleyre.  The  home  of 
Trilby  herself  was  in  the  street  that  Du  Maurier  called 
the   Rue   du   Puits   d'Amour.    Trilby   indicated   the 


"The  Morgue,  that  gruesome  building  which  the  great  etcher  Meryon 
has  managed  to  invest  with  some  weird  fascination  akin  to  that  it  had  for 
me  in  those  days — and  has  now,  as  I  see  it  with  the  charmed  eyes  of 
Memory." — Du  Maurier's  "Peter  Ibbetson." 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  121 

exact  address.  "  Treize  bisy  Rue  du  Puits  d' Amour, 
rez-de-chausseey  au  fond  de  la  cour  a  gauche,  vis-d-vis  le 
mont  de  piete.  "The  real  name  of  the  street  was,  and  is, 
the  Rue  Git-le-Coeur.  It  is  a  short  thoroughfare,  run- 
ning from  the  Rue  St.  Andre  des  Arts  to  the  Quai  des 
Grands  Augustins.  Then  there  was  allusion  to  the 
Rue  Vieille  des  Mauvais]  Ladres  (the  old  street  of  the 
bad  lepers)  which  in  all  likelihood  was  the  Rue  de  la 
Vieille  Boucherie  of  other  days;  and  the  Rue  Tire-Liard, 
where  Svengali  lived;  and  the  Rue  des  Pousse-Cailloux, 
to  which  Trilby  moved  after  she  left  the  Martins. 

But  there  is  a  Trilby  trail  that  is  easier  for  the  casual 
visitor  to  follow;  a  trail  that  does  not  call  for  scrutiny 
of  old  maps  and  consultation  of  the  Bottins  of  bygone 
years.  If  it  was  a  fine  Saturday  the  Laird  and  Little 
Billee  would  pick  up  Taffy,  who  lived  in  the  Rue  de 
Seine,  and  thence  the  three  would  make  their  way  to 
the  Cite  for  a  look  at  the  Morgue.  Then  they  would 
turn  westward  along  the  quais  of  the  left  bank,  stopping 
in  the  middle  of  the  Pont  des  Arts  to  study  the  river 
and  dream,  and  then  proceed  to  the  Louvre,  the  Rue  de 
Rivoli,  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  the  Madeleine,  and 
along  the  boulevards.  Incidentally  the  Pilgrim  is 
warned  against  using  the  book  too  literally  as  a  guide. 
Even  such  seasoned  Parisians  as  the  "Musketeers  of  the 
Brush"  would  have  been  at  their  wits'  ends  in  directing 
their  footsteps  to  conform  with  the  actual  text. 

Despite  the  accident  of  residence  in  the  Place  Saint- 
Anatole  des  Arts,  Little  Billee's  heart  was  not  in  the 
Latin  Quarter,  but  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  es- 
pecially the  Rue  de  Lille,  where  he  would  gaze  at  the 


122       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

"hotels'*  of  the  old  French  noblesse,  and  forget  himself 
in  dreams  of  past  and  forgotten  French  chivalry.  And 
his  favourite  among  all  the  splendid  structures  of  that 
easily  found  street  was  the  "Hotel  de  la  Rochemartel." 
It  was  before  the  gateway  that  Little  Billee,  "no  snob, 
but  a  respectably  brought  up  young  Briton  of  the  higher 
middle  classes"  learned,  to  his  consternation,  that  the 
real  name  of  the  disreputable  Zouave  Zou-Zou,  of  whose 
company  he  had  been  so  ashamed,  was  "Gontran-Xav- 
ier-Fran^ois-Marie-Joseph  d'Amaury-Brissac  de  Ron- 
cesvaulx  de  la  Rochemartel-Boissegur."  The  present 
entrance  of  the  Grand  Hotel  is  on  the  Rue  Scribe.  But 
imtil  eight  or  nine  years  ago  the  entrance  was  through 
an  archway  at  No.  12  Boulevard  des  Capucines.  In 
place  of  the  present  tea-room  there  was  a  courtyard 
with  a  circular  driveway  and  a  fountain  in  the  middle. 
It  was  in  this  courtyard  that  Svengali  spat  in  Little 
Billee's  face  and  had  his  own  nose  violently  tweaked 
by  the  herculean  Taffy. 

For  the  trail  of  "Trilby,"  Du  Maurier  drew  upon  the 
Paris  of  his  youth.  For  many  of  the  people  of  the  tale 
he  turned  to  friends  and  acquaintances  of  that  period 
and  later  periods.  The  story  of  how  he  drew  Whistler 
as  Joe  Sibley,  the  idle  apprentice;  of  how  Whistler 
stormed  and  threatened  suit,  characterizing  Du  Maurier 
as  "a  false  friend,"  and  of  how  Joe  Sibley  was  changed 
to  Antony,  the  Swiss,  is  an  old  and  familiar  one.  About 
ten  years  ago  there  died  in  England  a  man  named 
Joseph  Rowley,  who  had  been  a  magistrate  in  Flint- 
shire, and  an  old  and  close  neighbour  of  Mr.  Gladstone. 
He  was  the  original  of  "TaflPy"   Wynne.    When   a 


BOHEMIAN  TRAILS  123 

young  student  in  Paris  he  had  been  a  comrade  of  Du 
Maurier,  Leighton,  and  Whistler,  and  throughout  the 
entire  Quarter  had  been  noted  for  his  prodigious  strength, 
and  his  skill  at  wrestling  and  boxing.  "The  Laird" 
was  drawn  from  T.  R.  Lamont,  the  portrait  painter,  who 
never  quite  forgave  Du  Maurier  for  the  eccentric  French 
attributed  to  him  in  the  book.  The  name  from  which 
the  story  drew  its  title  was  one  that  had  long  lain  perdu 
somewhere  at  the  back  of  Du  Maurier's  head.  He 
traced  it  to  a  tale  by  Charles  Nodier,  in  which  Trilby  had 
been  a  man.  The  name  Trilby  also  appears  in  a  poem 
of  Alfred  de  Musset.  "From  the  moment  the  name 
occurred  to  me,"  Du  Maurier  once  said,  "I  was  struck 
with  its  value.  I  at  once  realized  that  it  was  a  name 
of  great  importance.  I  think  I  must  have  felt  as  happy 
as  Thackeray  did  when  the  title  of  "Vanity  Fair" 
suggested  itself  to  him."  Also  in  the  genesis  of  the  book 
there  was  the  story  of  a  woman  that  Du  Maurier  had 
once  heard.  It  suggested  the  hypnotism.  The  woman 
was  probably  the  beautiful  Elise  Duval,  the  favourite 
model  of  Gerome  and  Benjamin  Constant. 


IX.  SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN 

The  Lesson  of  Laurence  Sterne — The  France  of  Kipling's 
"The  Light  That  Failed" — The  Trail  of  Stevenson — " R.  L. 
S."  in  Paris,  Fontainehleau,  and  Grez — Conan  Doyle's  Sher- 
lock Holmes  and  Brigadier  Gerard — "  The  Refugees" — Leonard 
Merrick's  Tricotrin  and  His  Haunts — The  Paris  of  Arnold 
Bennett— The  Writing  of  ''The  Old  Wives'  Tale"—W.  J, 
Locke's  "The  Beloved  Vagabond"  and  "Septimus" — Mr. 
Locke  on  His  Own  Characters. 

SINCE  Laurence  Sterne  made  the  discovery  that 
"they  order  this  matter  better  in  France," 
and  wrote  the  "Sentimental  Journey,"  English- 
men of  letters  of  all  conditions  and  degrees  of  talent 
have  been  t'ujming  to  the  near-by  land  for  direct  inspira- 
tion and  for  occasional  background.  There  is  a  Sir  Walter 
Scott  France  in  the  pages  of  "Quentin  Durward." 
The  conventional  beginning  of  a  novel  by  G.  P.  R. 
James  pictured  two  horsemen  riding  along  a  river  bank, 
and  in  most  cases  the  river  bore  a  Gallic  name.  What- 
ever the  political  sympathies  of  Disraeli  may  have  been, 
as  a  writer  of  fiction  he  invariably  endowed  his  char- 
acters with  a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  French  art, 
literature,  wines,  and  sauces.  To  mention  only  one  of 
the  novels  of  Bulwer-Lytton,  there  was  the  tale  bearing 
the  title:  "The  Parisians."  Another  Lytton  wrote 
"Aux  Italiens,"  beginning  with  the  somewhat  hack- 

124 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN  125 

neyed  lines  "In  Paris  it  was,  at  the  Opera  there."  Es- 
sentially French  was  the  genius  of  George  Meredith. 
The  story  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray  in  Paris  and  the 
French  scenes  and  characters  in  their  books  has  already 
been  told,  and  the  story  of  George  Du  Maurier  and  the 
city  by  the  Seine  that  was  so  charmingly  reflected  in 
the  pages  of  "Trilby,"  "Peter  Ibbetson,"  and  "The 
Martian."  What  of  the  younger  men — the  men  of  to- 
day or  of  the  recent  yesterday?  It  is  quite  impossible 
to  think  of  considering  them  all,  and  few  will  be  likely 
to  quarrel  with  the  selection  of  the  names  of  Kipy- 
ling,  Stevenson,  Doyle,  Locke,  Bennett,  Conrad,  and 
Merrick. 

"There  is  of  course  Kipling's  India  and  the  adjacent 
lands.  There  is  a  Kipling's  England  of  unappreciated 
richness,  the  England  of  'They,'  of  *An  Habitation 
Enforced,'  of  *An  Error  in  the  Fourth  Dimension,* 
and  the  incomparable  stories  of  *  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill.* 
There  is  a  Kipling  tale  to  fit  every  one  of  the  Seven 
Seas.  There  is  a  Kipling's  United  States;  the  Middle 
West  in  'The  Naulahka';  Maine  and  New  York  City 
in  *A  Walking  Delegate*;  California  and  Gloucester 
in  'Captains  Courageous.'  The  spirit  of  France  is 
reflected  and  extolled  in  many  lines  of  his  work.  But 
where  can  you  turn  to  find  an  actual  invasion  of  French 
soil  in  Kipling  narrative?"  So  challenged  a  friend  of 
the  Pilgrim.  For  the  moment  he  had  forgotten  Tor- 
penhow's  journey  in  quest  of  Maisie  afterDick  had  gone 
blind  as  related  in  "The  Light  That  Failed."  Torpen- 
how's  route  was  outlined  by  the  Keneu,  in  discussion 
with  the  Nilghai.    "He  will  go  to  Vitry-sur-Mame, 


126       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

which  is  on  the  Bezieres-Landes  Railway — single  track 
from  Tourgas."  Now  although  there  is  a  Vitry-sur- 
Seine,  and  a  Vitry-Pas-de-Calais,  and  a  Vitry-la-Ville, 
and  a  Vitry-le-Francois,  there  is  no  actual  Vitry-sur- 
Marne.  Also  there  is  no  Bezieres-Landes  Railway, 
and  no  Tourgas.  Otherwise  either  Vitry-le-Fran9ois 
or  Vitry-la-Ville  answer  all  practical  purposes,  for  they 
are  in  the  general  direction  indicated,  and  close  by  the 
river  Mame.  Perhaps  to  this  day  lives  the  legend  of 
the  mad  Englishman  who  had  drunk  all  the  officers  of 
the  garrison  under  the  table,  had  borrowed  a  horse  from 
the  Hnes,  and  had  then  and  there  eloped,  after  the  Eng- 
lish custom,  with  one  of  those  more  than  mad  English 
girls  who  drew  pictures  down  there  under  the  care  of  the 
good  Monsieur  Kami. 

Mr.  Clayton  Hamilton,  in  his  admirable  "On  the 
Trail  of  Stevenson,"  has  told  the  story  of  "  R.  L.  S."  and 
the  France  that  he  adored.  "Stevenson,"  wrote  Mr. 
Hamilton,  "lived  more  freely,  more  fully,  and  more  hap- 
pily in  France  than  in  any  other  country.  When  Louis 
was  floundering  through  the  stormy  seas  of  adolescence, 
Edinburgh  never  understood  him.  This  is  the  reason 
why,  for  a  time,  he  hovered  very  near  to  dashing  head- 
long to  hell.  But  in  Paris,  the  city  of  the  free,  he  re- 
covered his  mental  sanity.  Instead  of  a  conspiracy 
of  citizens  solemnly  and  hypocritically  chanting  'Thou 
shalt  not,'  he  found  a  civilized  society  that  permitted 
him  to  think  out  for  himself  the  more  important  prob- 
lem of  Thou  shalt'." 

It  was  on  his  return  from  Mentone  in  April,  1874,  that 
Louhis  met  his  cousin,  Robert  Alan  Mowbray  Steven- 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN        127 

son,  in  Paris,  and  really  saw  the  city  for  the  first  time. 
R.  A.  M.  was  a  painter,  and  he  introduced  Louis  to  the 
town  of  the  ateliers,  the  Paris  that  has  always  left  the 
deepest  impression  on  ardent  youth.  The  foreigner's 
Paris,  which  has  its  heart  in  the  Place  de  TOpera,  he 
saw  with  the  eyes  of  a  stranger,  but  the  rive  gauche, 
the  city  of  freedom  and  adventure,  the  Paris  where, 
as  Dante  phrased  it,  "a  youth  may  learn  to  make  him- 
self eternal,"  he  took  at  once  to  his  bosom.  To  quote 
Mr.  Hamilton:  "This  Paris  he  knew  better  and  loved 
much  more  than  any  phase  of  London.  He  could 
wear  his  queer  clothes,  and  think  his  queer  thoughts, 
and  feel  his  queer  feelings,  and  pursue  his  queer  business 
of  learning  how  to  write;  and  the  fellows  he  encountered 
every  day  could  understand  him,  and  knew  enough  to 
leave  him  alone.'* 

The  reminiscences  of  those  years  went  into  the  mak- 
ing of  "The  Wrecker.'*  In  that  book  Stevenson  sang 
the  praises  of  the  "Boul.  Mich.'*,  and  the  gardens  of 
the  Luxembourg,  and  the  Rue  de  Rennes,  and  Laven- 
ue*s,  which  is  near  the  Gare  Monparnasse,  and  the  Ob- 
servatoire,  and  the  Hotel  de  Cluny,  and  Roussillon 
wine.  Says  London  Dodd,  the  hero  of  the  tale:  "Z.  Mar- 
cas  lived  next  door  to  me  in  my  ungainly,  ill-smelling 
hotel  in  the  Rue  Racine;  I  dined  in  my  villainous 
restaurant  with  Lousteau  and  Rastignac:  if  a  curricle 
nearly  ran  me  down  at  a  street  crossing,  Maxime  de 
Trailles  would  be  the  driver.'*  His  knowledge  of  the 
painter's  Paris  was  also  utilized  in  the  second  story  of 
"The  New  Arabian  Nights,"  where  the  American, 
Silas  Q.  Scuddamore,  experiences  a  series  of  unusual 


128       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


adventures  at  the  Bal  Bullier.  That  famous  dance 
of  the  students  of  the  Quarter  is  described  with  a  wealth 
of  detail.  Francis  Scrymgeour  found  the  House  with 
the  Green  Blinds  far  up  the  slope  of  Montmartre,  in 
the  Rue  Lepic,  commanding  a  view  of  all  Paris  and 

enjoying  the  pure  air 
of  the  heights.  It 
was  a  typical  house  of 
the  Montmartre  of 
the*seventies,  and 
there  was  a  high  gar- 
den wall  protected  by 
chevaux-de'frise. 
Francis,  after  adven- 
tures in  the  House 
with  the  Green  Blinds, 
took  to  his  heels  down 
the  lane  that  leads  to 
the  Rue  Ravignan. 
The  Rue  Lepic,  the 
Rue  Ravignan,  and 
the  connecting  lane 
may  all  easily  be 
found  to-day.  In 
that  one  episode  there 
is  more  of  a  definite 
Paris  than  there  is  of  a  definite  London  in  all  *'Dr.  Jekyll 
and  Mr.  Hyde."  It  was  not  merely  in  contemporary 
Paris  that  Stevenson  was  at  home.  Prowling  through  the 
Latin  Quarter  he  delighted  in  mentally  reconstructing  it 
as  it  had  been  two  or  three  or  four  centuries  before.    If  the 


a  street  of  stevenson  s 
nights" 


NEW   ARABIAN 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     129 

subject  under  consideration  is  the  city  of  Victor  Hugo's 
"Notre  Dame,"  or  the  ride  of  D'Artagnan  to  Belle-Isle, 
as  related  in  *'Le  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,"  or  the  town 
that  knew  Fran9ois  Villon,  in  some  one  of  Stevenson's 
essays  there  is  always  a  fitting  quotation  to  be  found. 
It  was  his  personal  knowledge  of  the  Quarter  supple- 
mented by  his  sympathetic  grasp  of  the  spirit  of  the 
writers  of  the  past  that  gave  him  the  material  he  needed 
for  his  tales  of  mediaeval  France. 

"Stevenson's  interest  in  the  history  of  Paris,'*  to 
revert  to  Mr.  Hamilton's  book,  "would  scarcely  be 
worth  recording  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  he  never 
showed  the  slightest  interest  in  the  history  of  London. 
His  London — so  to  speak — is  devoid  of  any  past;  but  his 
Paris  stretches  back  through  the  centuries.  The  first 
story  that  he  ever  published  was  a  tale  of  mediaeval 
Paris,  "A  Lodging  for  the  Night."  In  origin,  it  was  an 
offshoot  from  two  of  the  critical  papers  which  were  later 
collected  in  "Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books" — 
the  essay  on  Victor  Hugo's  romances  and  the  essay  on 
Francois  Villon.  In  this  great  story  Stevenson  looked 
at  Villon  through  the  eyes  of  Victor  Hugo.  The  tale 
is  utterly  original  in  style.  A  Paris  of  the  past  is  re- 
created by  a  master  hand.  But  "A  Lodging  for  the 
Night" — despite  its  manifest,  peculiar  merits — may  be 
regarded  as  the  sort  of  story  Hugo  would  have  written 
if  he,  too,  had  made  a  thorough  study  of  the  life  and 
work  of  the  greatest  vandal  among  noets,  the  greatest 
poet  among  vandals. 

"Stevenson's  second  story,  *The  Sire  de  Maletroit's 
Door,'  is  also  set  in  mediaeval  France.    It  is  a  sort  of 


I30       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

tale  that  old  Dumas  might  have  told  if  he  had  ever  had 
sufficient  leisure  to  develop  the  finished  style  of  R.  L.  S. 
The  story  happens  in  a  nameless  town.  We  are  in- 
formed that  the  hero,  Denis  de  Beaulieu,  is  a  resident 
of  Bourges;  and  scene  of  the  tale  may  be  imagined  as  a 
lesser  Bourges,  more  dark  and  little  and  intimate  and 
thrilling.  There  are  glimpses  of  Gothic  architecture 
in  this  story  that  show  us  that  Stevenson  had  used  his 
eyes  to  better  advantage  in  France  than  he  ever  used 
them  in  England.  In  France,  where  his  eyes  were 
open,  he  could  see  the  past;  in  England,  where  his  eyes 
were  shut,  he  could  scarcely  see  the  present." 

Perhaps  there  was  no  period  of  Stevenson's  always 
romantic  life  of  more  enduring  interest  than  the  Fon- 
tainebleau  period.  To  the  Forest  he  was  introduced 
in  April,  1875,  by  the  same  R.  A.  M.  S.  who  a  year  before 
had  showed  him  the  Latin  Quarter.  The  cousins  made 
their  headquarters  at  Siron*s,  in  Barbizon,  wliere  they 
were  knoWn  as  "Stennis  atne"  and  "Stennis  frere. 
"The  Wrecker"  pictures  them  under  these  names  in 
pages  that  are  drawn  directly  from  the  life.  *'He  was 
a  great  walker  in  those  days,"  says  Mr.  Hamilton, 
"and  explored  not  only  the  forest  itself,  but  all  the 
towns  of  the  adjacent  countryside.  He  knew  not  only 
Barbizon,  but  Marlotte,  Montigny,  and  Chailly-en- 
Biere,  Cemay-la-Ville,  Bourron,  Moret,  Nemours,  and 
Grez.  The  traveller  who  visits  any  of  these  entrancing 
little  tow^ns  will  find  himself  walking  in  the  footsteps 
of  R.  L.  S.  It  is  no  longer  necessary  to  describe  them; 
they  have  been  described  for  all  time  in  the  two  essays 
in  which  Louis  has  recounted  his  memories  of  this  dis- 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     131 

trict — the  paper  entitled  "  Fontainebleau,"  and  the 
paper  entitled  "Forest  Notes." 

After  Barbizon,  Stevenson's  favourite  haunt  in  the 
district  was  Grez.  In  the  summer  of  1875  he  wrote 
to  his  mother:  "I  have  been  three  days  at  a  place 
called  Grez,  a  pretty  and  very  melancholy  village  on 
the  plain.  A  low  bridge,  with  many  arches  choked 
with  sedge;  green  fields  of  white  and  yellow  water-lilies; 
poplars  and  willows  innumerable;  and  about  it  all  such 
an  atmosphere  of  sadness  and  slackness,  one  could  do 
nothing  but  get  into  the  boat  and  out  of  it  again,  and 
yawn  for  bedtime.'*  Later,  in  the  essay  called  *'Fon- 
tainebleau"  he  was  in  another  mood.  "But  Grez  is  a 
merry  place  after  its  kind;  pretty  to  see,  merry  to 
inhabit.  The  course  of  its  pellucid  river,  whether  up 
or  down,  is  full  of  attractions  for  the  navigator;  the 
mirror  and  inverted  images  of  trees,  lilies,  and  mills, 
and  the  foam  and  thunder  of  weirs.  And  of  all  noble 
sweeps  of  roadway,  none  is  nobler,  on  a  windy  dusk, 
than  the  highroad  to  Nemours  between  its  lines  of  talk- 
ing poplar."  It  was  at  Grez  that  Stevenson,  aged 
twenty-five,  met  the  woman,  aged  thirty-seven,  who  was 
later  to  become  his  wife.   ' 

To  find  the  invented  character  closest  to  the  heart  of 
Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  would  be  a  matter,  not  of  visit- 
ing the  rooms  in  Upper  Baker  Street,  London,  to  en- 
counter the  most  widely  known  personage  in  all  fiction 
enveloped  in  a  dressing  gown  and  thick  clouds  of  shag 
tobacco  smoke,  but  of  prowling  among  certain  Paris 
cafes  of  1845  or  thereabouts  in  search  of  a  talkative 
vieux  grognard  of  the  First  Empire  with  a  strong  Gascon 


132       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

accent.  For  despite  the  world-wide  popularity  of  his 
creation  Doyle  never  loved  Sherlock  Holmes,  whereas 
he  has  always  adored  Colonel  Etienne  Gerard  of  the 
Hussar  of  Conflans.  The  exploits  of  Gerard  do  not,  in 
themselves,  save  in  a  few  instances,  belong  to  Paris; 
they  are  the  tales  of  Russian  ice  and  snow>  of  castles 
of  gloom  in  Poland,  of  treachery  lurking  in  moldy 
canal-laved  houses  of  Venice,  of  mountain  peaks  in 
Portugal,  of  the  English  prison  of  Dartmoor,  of  the 
lonely  rock  of  St.  Helena.  But  the  telling  of  them 
does,  and,  through  the  medium  of  the  grizzled  Brigadier 
sipping  his  glass  of  wine,  garrulous  as  the  memory  of 
the  great  days  through  which  he  has  lived  surge  within 
him,  yet  feeling  the  call  of  the. beloved  Gascony  of  his 
boyhood,  Doyle  has  poured  out  all  his  joyously  acquired 
and  marvellously  transmuted  knowledge  of  the  Napo- 
leonic period,  and  the  men  with  the  hairy  knapsacks 
and  the  hearts  of  steel  whose  tramp  shook  the  continent 
for  so  many  years. 

Immensely  proud  is  Conan  Doyle  of  that  collection 
of  Napoleonic  military  memoirs  out  of  which  grew  the 
vainglorious  yet  altogether  delightful  Gerard.  Glow- 
ingly he  told  of  it  in  "Through  the  Magic  Door,"  per- 
haps the  least  read  although  one  of  the  finest  of  all  his 
books.  "Here,'*  he  said,  "is  Marbot,  the  first  of  all 
soldier  books  in  the  world.  Marbot  gives  you  the  point 
of  view  of  the  officer.  So  does  De  Segfur  and  De 
Fezensac  and  Colonel  Gonville,  each  in  some  different 
branch  of  the  service.  But  some  are  from  the  pens  of  the 
men  in  the  ranks,  and  they  are  even  more  graphic  than 
the  others.     Here,  for  example,  are  the  papers  of  good 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     133 

old  Cogniet,  who  was  a  grenadier  of  the  Guard,  and 
could  neither  read  nor  write  until  the  great  wars  were 
over.  A  tougher  soldier  never  went  into  battle.  Here 
is  Sergeant  Bourgogne,  also  with  his  dreadful  account 
of  that  nightmare  campaign  in  Russia,  and  the  gallant 
Chevillet,  trumpeter  of  Chasseurs,  with  his  matter- 
of-fact  account  of  all  that  he  saw,  where  the  daily 
*combat*  is  sandwiched  in  between  the  real  business  of 
the  day,  which  was  foraging  for  his  frugal  breakfast 
and  supper."  Where  was  the  cafe  honoured  by  the 
patronage  and  reminiscence  of  Gerard?  That  is  a 
matter  for  the  pleasant,  harmless  play  of  the  imagina- 
tion. Any  haunt  will  do,  such  a  one,  for  example,  as 
Thackeray  sang  in  "The  Chronicle  of  the  Drum": 

At  Paris,  hard  by  the  Maine  barriers. 

Whoever  will  choose  to  repair. 
Midst  a  dozen  of  wooden  legged  warriors 

May  haply  fall  in  with  old  Pierre. 
On  the  sunshiny  side  of  a  tavern 

He  sits  and  he  prates  of  old  wars. 
And  moistens  his  pipe  of  tobacco 

With  a  drink  that  is  named  after  Mars. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  such  thing  as  a  Sherlock  Holmes 
Paris  trail.  But  every  now  and  then  in  the  stories  occur 
references  to  the  French  capital,  allusions  to  hurried 
trips  made  by  the  great  man  across  the  Channel,  either 
for  professional  purposes  or  for  relaxation  after  some 
particularly  baffling  problem  has  been  solved.  Also 
we  know  that  there  was  constant  communication  be- 
tween Upper  Baker  Street  and  the  French  secret  service, 


134       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

and  Holmes  was  forever  tossing  across  the  table  to 
Watson  cablegrams  filled  with  such  expressions  of 
admiration  as  *'magnifique*'  and  *'coup-de-mattre.'* 
Perhaps  some  day,  when  Doyle  sees  fit  to  tell  us  more 
of  his  hero's  activities  in  the  Great  War  than  he  related 
in  "His  Last  Bow,"  we  shall  be  introduced  to  a  M. 
Sherlock  Holmes,  temporarily  at  least,  citoyen  de  Paris. 
There  is  a  very  concrete  old  Paris  of  Conan  Doyle. 
It  is  the  city  of  "The  Refugees,"  a  tale  which  began 

in  the  France  of  the 
later  life  of  Louis  XIV, 
when  that  monarch, 
under  the  influence  of 
Madame  de  Main- 
tenon,  was  reviving 
with  extreme  severity 
the  edicts  against 
those  of  the  Huguenot 
faith.  Much  research 
went  into  the  making 
of  that  book  with  the 
result  that  there  is  to 
the  story  the  genuine 
flavour  of  old  streets. 
At  the  comer  of  the 
Rue  S  aint-Martin  and 
the  Rue  de  Biron 
was  the  house  of  the 

OLD  RUE  SAINT-MARTIN  i  /-.       •  i 

merchant  Catmat,  the 
father 'of  the  heroine  Adele,  "a  narrow  building,  four 
stories  in  height,  grim  and  grave  like  its  owner,  with  high 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     135 

peaked  roof,  long  diamond  paned  windows,  a  framework 
of  black  wood,  with  gray  plaster  filling  the  interstices,  and 
five  stone  steps  which  led  up  to  the  narrow  and  sombre 
door."  That  structure  was  the  scene  of  the  Paris  half 
of  "The  Refugees,"  when  the  tale  was  not  revolving 
about  the  sun-like  magnificence  of  the  royal  Louis- 
From  there  the  little  party  bound  for  the  religious 
freedom  promised  by  the  New  World  made  its  way  by 
night  to  the  city  gates,  thence  to  Rouen,  and  then  by 
boat  through  the  winding  Seine  to  the  open  sea. 

The  Tricotrin  of  Leonard  Merrick  is  a  true  lineal 
descendant  of  the  Rodolphe  of  Henry  Murger,  and  he 
is  quite  as  French.  For  Merrick  knows  his  Paris  as 
well  as  he  knows  his  London,  and  of  the  two,  obviously 
prefers  the  French  capital.  If  Tricotrin  happened  to 
survive  the  Great  War  it  should  not  be  difficult  to  find 
him.  He  lives  up  six  flights  of  stairs  in  an  attic  in 
Montmartre.  He  is  a  poet  whose  poems  are  unprinted, 
just  as  his  friend  Pitou  is  a  musician  whose  music  is 
never  played,  as  his  friend  Flamant  is  a  painter  whose 
pictures  are  never  sold  or  exhibited,  and  as  his  friend 
Lajeunie  is  a  playwright  whose  pieces  are  never  'pro- 
duced. It  is  the  four  of  Murger  over  again.  Tricotrin 
has  an  uncle  in  the  provinces — a  silk  manufacturer  of 
Lyons — ^who  earnestly  wishes  the  young  man  to  forsake 
his  unconventional  ways  and  embark  in  trade.  That 
is  of  course  what  Tricotrin  will  do  eventually,  but  in 
the  meantime  he  prefers  to  remain  in  his  attic,  dining 
on  a  herring,  flaunting  his  long  hair  and  shabby  clothes 
on  the  boulevards,  and  building  fine  day-dreams  of 
fortune  and  renown.     From  time  to  time  the  sun  of 


136       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

prosperity  emerges  from  the  clouds  and  for  a  brief 
moment  shines  upon  Tricotrin.  For  example,  on  one 
occasion,  he  is  employed  to  contribute  to  a  newly  estab- 
lished journal  in  a  remote  town  a  weekly  letter  on  the 
theatrical  life  of  Paris.  Dining  on  the  herring  in  the 
Montmartre  attic  his  imagination  is  not  hampered  by 
unsympathetic  fact.  In  his  opinions  of  performances 
he  discreetly  agrees  with  the  Figaro,  but  in  his  para- 
graphs he  "sups*'  and  "chats"  with  all  sorts  of  promi- 
nent people.  His  invisible  telephone  is  a  fountain  of 
perpetual  inspiration.  "Why,"  he  confides,  "to- 
morrow Yvette  Guilbert  is  going  to  call  me  up  the 
moment  she  returns  from  London  to  tell  me  of  her  pro- 
fessional worries  and  to  beg  me  for  my  advice.  As 
she  will  be  prostrated  by  the  journey,  I  am  not  sure 
but  that,  yielding  to  her  entreaties,  I  may  even  jump 
into  an  auto-taxi  and  take  pot-luck  in  her  delightful 
home." 

Of  course  the  day  comes  when  the  editor  of  the  remote 
paper  decides  to  visit  Paris  in  order  that  Tricotrin  may 
introduce  him  to  some  of  the  celebrities  of  literature 
and  the  stage.  The  poet,  at  his  wits'  ends,  calls  upon 
his  friends  for  help.  They  respond  nobly,  all  except 
Lajeunie,  who  selfishly  refuses  to  shave  his  head  in 
order  that  Tricotrin  may  introduce  him  to  the  visiting 
editor  as  Edmond  Rostand.  A  dozen  stories,  twenty 
stories,  might  be  told  of  Tricotrin,  his  expedients,  his 
gallantries,  and  of  the  Paris  of  his  wanderings.  He  has 
his  moral  shortcomings,  but  they  merely  add  to  the 
picture.  Taken  all  in  all  Tricotrin  is  the  most  delight- 
ful Bohemian  of  the  fiction  of  the  last  two  decades. 


The  Rue  du  Haut  Pave,  looking  toward  the  Pantheon.  "There  are 
in  Paris  certain  streets,"  wrote  the  great  Honore  de  Balzac  in  "Ferragus," 
"as  dishonoured  as  can  be  any  man  convicted  of  infamy.  .  .  .  There 
are  murderous  streets,  and  streets  older  than  the  oldest  possible  dowagers." 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     137 

But  there  is  a  Leonard  Merrick  Paris  which  does  not 
depend  upon  Tricotrin  and  his  long-haired  companions. 
It  is  the  reminiscent  city  of  "Conrad  in  Quest  of  His 
Youth."  Trying  to  bring  back  the  flavour  of  the  past 
Conrad  sampled  the  hospitality  of  a  little  hotel  on  the 
left  bank,  in  the  Rue  du  Haut  Pave,  and  puffed  his 
cigarettes  in  the  Cafe  Vachette  and  the;  Cafe  d'Har- 
court.  It  is  the  whimsical  city  of  "The  Suicides  of  the 
Rue  Sombre."  It  is  the  tragical  city  of  "The  Back  of 
Bohemia."  It  is  the  fantastic  city  of  " Little-Flower- 
of-the-Wood."  It  is  the  enchanted  city  of  "The 
Prince  in  the  Fairy  Tale."  There  is,  in  the  last-named 
story,  one  paragraph  alone  that  establishes  Leonard 
Merrick's  claim  to  be  considered  as  one  of  the  interpre- 
ters in  fiction  of  la  ville  lumiere.  "  I  have  never, "  he  says, 
"seen  a  city  that  opens  it  eyes  as  good-humouredly  as 
Paris.  In  pictures  it  is  always  shown  to  us  at  night, 
with  its  myriad  lamps  shining,  or  in  the  afternoon, 
when  it  is  frivolous,  and  its  fountains  flash;  but  in  my 
own  little  unimportant  opinion,  if  one  would  know 
Paris  at  its  sweetest  and  best  one  should  get  up  very 
early,  and  behold  it  when  it  wakes  to  work."  Again, 
in  rather  unkindly  criticism  of  beautiful  Brussels  he 
has  said  something  to  this  eff"ect:  "Stopping  at  Brussels 
en  route  for  Paris  is  like  calling  upon  the  sister  of  the 
woman  with  whom  you  are  in  love." 

The  cafe  that  figured  in  "Little-FIower-of-the-Wood" 
was  high  up  toward  the  summit  of  Montmartre  and 
was  long  known  as  the  "White  Wolf. "  But  in  the  new 
edition  of  his  books  Mr.  Merrick  has  changed  that  name 
to  another,  for  reasons  which  he  has  outlined  in  the 


138       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

course  of  a  recent  letter  to  the  present  Pilgrim.  Now 
the  restaurant  made  famous  by  the  whim  of  the  reign- 
ing dancer  of  the  moment  is  the  "Cafe  of  the  Good  Old 
Times."  "Long  after  the  story  had  been  published," 
says  Mr.  Merrick,  "I  came  across  this  name  over  a 
little  workman's  cafe,  a  debit,  on  a  country  road  some- 
where, and  it  was  so  exceedingly  appropriate  to  the 
story  that  I  regretted  that  I  had  not  struck  it  sooner. 
I  have  never  heard  of  any  cafe  of  this  name  in  Paris; 
and  the  story  of  *Little-Flower-of-the-Wood*  is  purely 
fiction.  It  was  suggested  by  the  fact  that  these  two 
disparate  classes  of  trade  obtained  simultaneously  after 
midnight  at  an  actual  cafe  in  Paris — champagne  suppers 
and  fortunate  cocottes  on  the  first  floor,  and  humble 
onion  soup  and  the  unsuccessful  sisterhood  downstairs. 
The  contrast  between  the  two  clienteles  was  so  dramatic 
that  it  cried  aloud  for  a  story.  - 

"The  name  of  the  cafe  frequented  by  Tricotrin  and 
his  circle,"  Mr.  Merrick  goes  on,  "has  been  changed  to 
the  /Cafe  of  the  Beautiful  Future.'  The  name  is,  I 
believe,  imaginary.  There  ought  to  have  been  an 
artistic  cafe  in  Paris  called  the  *Cafe  of  the  Beautiful 
Future'  so  I  have  done  what  I  could  do  to  fill  the  void. 
AlljOf  my  short  stories— prior  to  'While  Paris  Laughed' — 
that  I  wished  to  see  reprinted,  are  in  the  two  volumes, 
*A  Chair  on  the  Boulevard'  and  *The  Man  Who  Under- 
stood Women,'  and  there  are  many  revisions  of  names. 
All  stories  peopled  by  French  characters  are  assembled 
in  the  former.  *The  Back  of  Bohemia'  and  *The  Prince 
in  the  Fairy  Tale'  and  other  tales  dealing  with  Anglo- 
Saxons  are  contained  in  the  latter. 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     139 

"You  ask  me  if  there  was  a  real  Tricotrin.  There 
were  many,  but  my  Tricotrin  is  not  a  portrait  of  any  one 
in  particular.  This  applies  equally  to  Pitou  and  the 
cafe.  Tricotrin's  origin  in  fiction?  I  suppose,  pri- 
marily, sympathy  with  the  French  temperament,  in- 
terest in  French  art,  and  the  fascination  that  the  true 
types  of  Montmartre — as  distinguished  from  the  night 
visitors  from  the  Grand  Boulevard — always  exercised 
upon  me.  All  the  same,  when  I  wrote  my  first  story 
of  Tricotrin  and  Pitou  ('The  Tragedy  of  a  Comic 
Song')  I  had  no  notion  that  they  would  ever  reappear 
in  any  further  story.  Their  longevity  was  not  designed 
by  me.  They  have  persisted  because,  to  me  at  all 
events,  they  were  very  much  alive,  very  dear.  Ill 
health  has  prevented  me  from  seeing  Paris  since  the 
early  part  of  the  war,  and  I  am  wondering  very  anxi- 
ously whether  I  shall  find  them  alive  when  I  go  back — in 
other  words,  how  much  of  the  hfe  of  Montmartre  the 
war  has  left.  It  is  quite  possible  that  I  may  find  that 
I  can  never  write  to  them  any  more,  for  lacking  the 
familiar  atmosphere,  I  think  they  would  be  pathetic 
figures.  Personally,  I  found  it  sad  to  meet  the  Mus- 
keteers again  in  their  middle-age  and  *  Ftngt  Ans  Apres.' 
But  as  war  does  not  recreate  human  nature,  though  we 
are  asked  to  believe  that  this  one  has  re-created  it,  there 
will  be  new  Tricotrins  and  Pitous  born  in  France  in  every 
generation.  Not  war,  but  the  end  of  the  world  will  have 
to  come  before  her  artistry  and  sentiment  perish. 

"I  do  not,  at  the  moment,  recall  any  precise  portrait 
in  any  of  my  stories  of  France  excepting  in  *The  Ban- 
quets of  Kiki' — in  'While  Paris  Laughed.*    Grospiron 


I40       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

lives.  And  Madame  Grospiron,  if  she  is  spared,  will 
fulfill  the  picture  of  her  about  thirty  years  hence. 
When  I  saw  her  last  she  was  still  a  *  plump,  rosy  girl 
with  a  violent  mother.  *  By  the  way,  here  is  an  example 
of  the  literary  instinct  to  be  found  in  almost  every 
grade  of  the  French.  At  a  cafe  I  had  noticed  a  woman, 
like  the  woman  described  in  the  story  *A  Piece  of  Sugar' 
('While  Paris  Laughed'),  surreptitiously  pocket  a  few 
matches.  It  looked  more  pitiful  than  it  sounds. 
While  I  was  still  wondering  how  I  could  handle  the  in- 
cident, I  happened  to  speak  of  it  in  the  hearing  of  that 
violent  mother — uneducated,  of  the  lower  classes. 
Instantaneously  she  broke  in,  'Poor  soul.  But  it  would 
have  been  even  more  dramatic  if  she  had  pocketed  a 
piece  of  sugar!'  Impossible  to  imagine  an  English- 
woman of  the  lower  classes  saying  that. 

"I  have  omitted  to  say  that  Tricotrin  and  Pitou 
live — or  lived — whichever  it  may  prove  to  be — in  Mont- 
martre  because  it  was  the  only  district  for  them.  Not 
a  few  critics,  both  on  your  side  and  here,  insist  on  re- 
ferring to  them  as  denizens  of  the  Latin  Quarter,  but 
as  you  doubtless  know  as  well  as  I,  Murger's  Latin 
Quarter  and  the  modern  Latin  Quarter  were  two  widely 
different  things." 

For  the  Paris  of  Arnold  Bennett  turn  to  "The  Old 
Wives'  Tale."  In  his  introduction  to  that  story  he 
told  how,  in  the  autumn  of  1903,  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  dining  frequently  in  a  restaurant  in  the  Rue  de  Clichy 
and  how  there  he  saw  the  two  giggling  waitresses  and 
the  grotesque  old  woman  whose  plight  stirred  him  to 
the  thought  that  she  had  once  been  young,  with  the 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     141 

unique  charm  of  youth  in  her  form  and  movements 
and  in  her  mind.  "It  was  at  this  instant  that  I  was 
visited  by  the  idea  of  writing  the  book  which  ultimately 
became  *The  Old  Wives'  Tale/"  What  follows  is, 
in  a  measure,  a  revelation  of  Arnold  Bennett's  literary 
creed: 


I  put  aside  the  idea  for  a  long  time,  but  it  was  never  very  distant 
from  me.  For  several  reasons  it  made  a  special  appeal  to  me.  I 
had  always  been  a  convinced  admirer  of  Mrs.  W.  K.  Clifford's  most 
precious  novel,  "Aunt  Anne,"  but  I  wanted  to  see  in  the  story  of  an 
old  woman  many  things  that  Mrs.  Clifford  had  omitted  from  "Aunt 
Anne."  Moreover,  I  had  always  revolted  against  the  absurd  youth- 
fulness,  the  unfading  youthfulness  of  the  average  heroine.  And  as 
a  protest  against  this  fashion,  I  was  already,  in  1903,  planning  a  novel 
("Leonora")  of  which  the  heroine  was  aged  forty,  and  had  daughters 
old  enough  to  be  in  love.  But  I  meant  to  go  much  farther  than 
forty.  Finally,  as  a  supreme  reason,  I  had  the  example  and  the 
challenge  of  Guy  de  Maupassant's  "Une  Vie."  In  the  'nineties  we 
used  to  regard  "Une  Vie"  with  mute  awe,  as  being  the  summit  of 
achievement  in  fiction.  And  I  remember  being  very  cross  with 
Mr.  Bernard  Shaw^because,  having  read  "Une  Vie"  at  the  suggestion 
(I  think)  of  Mr.  William  Archer,  he  failed  to  see  in  it  anything  very 
remarkable.  Here  I  must  confess  that,  in  1908,  I  read  "Une  Vie" 
again,  and  in  spite  of  a  natural  anxiety  to  differ  from  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw,  I  was  gravely  disappointed  with  it.  It  is  a  fine  novel,  but 
decidedly  inferior  to  "Pierre  et  Jean"  or  even  "Fort  Comme  la  Mort." 
To  return  to  the  year  1903.  "Une  Vie"  relates  the  entire  life  history 
of  a  woman.  I  settled  in  the  privacy  of  my  own  head  that  my  book 
about  the  development  of  a  young  girl  into  a  stout  old  lady  must  be 
the  English  "Une  Vie."  I  have  been  accused  of  every  fault  except  a 
lack  of  self-confidence,  and  in  a  few  weeks  I  settled  a  further  point, 
namely,  that  my  book  must  go  one  better  than  "Une  Vie"  and  that  to 
this  end  it  must  be  the  life  history  of  two  women  instead  of  only  one. 
Hence  "The  Old  Wives*  Tale"  has  two  heroines. 


142       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

For  a  long  time  Mr.  Bennett  was  intimidated  by  the 
audacity  of  his  project,  but  he  had  sworn  to  carry  it  out. 
Five  or  six  novels  of  smaller  scope  were  produced  before 
he  turned  his  hand  to  the  big  task.  That  was  in  the 
autumn  of  1907.  He  began  the  writing  of  "The  Old 
Wives'  Tale"  in  a  village  near  Fontainebleau,  where  he 
had  rented  half  a  house  from  a  retired  railway  servant. 
The  apparent  length  to  which  the  story  was  to  run  ap- 
palled him.  It  was  to  be  a  matter  of  no  less  than  two 
hundred  thousand  words.  To  reassure  himself  he 
counted  the  words  in  several  famous  Victorian  novels 
and  found  that  they  averaged  four  hundred  thousand 
words.  The  first  part  of  "The  Old  Wives'  Tale"  was 
written  in  six  weeks.  Then,  in  a  London  hotel,  the 
author  came  to  an  impasse,  and  put  the  story  aside 
temporarily  in  order  to  write  "Buried  Alive."  That 
done,  he  returned  to  Fontainebleau,  and  finished  "The 
Old  Wives'  Tale  "  there  at  the  end  of  July,  1908.  When 
he  came  to  the  French  portion  of  the  story  he  saw  that 
the  Siege  of  Paris  fitted  chronologically.  For  first- 
hand information  he  turned  to  his  landlord. 


I  was  aware  that  my  railway  servant  and  his  wife  had  been  living 
in  Paris  at  the  time  of  the  war.  I  said  to  the  old  man:  "By  the 
way,  you  went  through  the  Siege  of  Paris,  didn't  you?"  He  turned 
to  his  old  wife  and  said,  uncertainly:  "The  Siege  of  Paris?  Yes,  we 
did,  didn't  we  ?"  The  Siege  had  been  only  one  incident  among  many 
in  their  lives.  Of  course  they  remembered  it  well,  though  not 
vividly,  and  I  gained  much  information  from  them.  But  the  most 
useful  thing  that  I  gained  from  them  was  the  perception,  startling 
at  first,  that  ordinary  people  went  on  living  very  ordinary  lives  in 
Paris  during  the  Siege,  and  that  to  the  vast  mass  of  the  population 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     143 

the  Siege  was  not  the  dramatic,  spectacular,  thrilling,  ecstatic  aflfair 
that  is  described  in  history. 

Conceived  in  a  Paris  restaurant,  begun  and  finished 
in  a  Paris  suburb,  "The  Old  Wives'  Tale"  is  rich  in  a 
Paris  that  the  Second  Empire  bequeathed  to  us  little 
changed.  Gerald  and  Sophia  on  their  honeymoon 
went  to  stay  at  the  Hotel  Meurice,  then  as  now  in  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli,  facing  the  Tuileries  Gardens.  In  later 
and  less  affluent  days  they  occupied  a  three-cornered 
bedroom  of  a  little  hotel  at  the  angle  of  the  Rue  Fon- 
taine (the  street  in  which  the  Forestiers  of  Maupassant's 
"Bel-Ami"  lived)  and  the  Rue  Laval  (later  renamed 
the  Rue  Victor  Masse).  It  is  on  the  slope  of  Mont- 
martre,  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  Boulevard  de 
Chchy.  Eventually  Sophia  became  the  proprietress 
of  the  Pension  Frensham  in  the  Rue  Lord-Byron,  a 
winding  street  of  the  Champs-Elysees  quarter,  very  near 
the  Arc  de  Triomphe.  An  event  of  her  early  Paris  days 
was  the  journey  to  Auxerre  to  witness  an  execution. 
Never  having  been  present  at  an  execution  Mr.  Bennett 
based  his  description  upon  a  series  of  articles  he  had 
read  in  a  Paris  newspaper.  Frank  Harris,  discussing 
"The  Old  Wives'  Tale"  in  London  Vanity  Fair^ 
said  that  it  was  clear  that  the  author  had  not  seen  an 
execution,  and  proceeded  to  describe  one  himself.  "It 
was,"  said  Mr.  Bermett,  "a  brief  but  terribly  convincing 
bit  of  writing,  quite  characteristic  and  quite  worthy 
of  the  author  of  *Montes  the  Matador'  and  of  a  man 
who  had  been  almost  everywhere  and  seen  almost 
everything." 


144       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

I  comprehended  how  far  short  I  had  fallen  of  the  truth!  I  wrote 
to  Mr.  Frank  Harris,  regretting  that  his  description  had  not  been 
printed  before  I  wrote  mine,  as  I  should  assuredly  have  utilized  it, 
and,  of  course,  I  admitted  that  I  had  never  witnessed  an  execution. 
He  simply  repHed:  "Neither  have  I."  This  detail  is  worth  pre- 
serving, for  it  is  a  reproof  to  that  large  body  of  readers  who,  when  a 
novelist  has  really  carried  conviction  to  them,  assert  ofFhand:  "Oh, 
that  must  be  autobiography!" 

No  Englishman  of  our  time  has  loved  Paris  more  and 
interpreted  it  more  sympathetically  than  Mr.  W.  J. 
Locke.  A  mythical  street,  somewhere  in  the  Latin 
Quarter,  is  the  Rue  des  Saladiers.  There,  at  No.  ii, 
was  the  atelier  Janot,  associated  with  "The  Beloved 
Vagabond."  Near  by  was  the  Cafe  Delphine,  where 
Paragot  exercised  a  dictatorship  similar  to  that  he  had 
enjoyed  at  the  Lotus  Club,  in  Tavistock  Street,  Covent 
Garden,  when  Asticot  first  became  his  faithful  chattel. 
To  Paragot,  Parks  was  the  "Boul.  Mich."  In  "Septi- 
mus," Zora  Middlemist,  at  the  time  of  the  first  visit, 
stayed  at  the  Grand  Hotel,  but  Septimus  Dix,  who 
knew  Paris  in  a  queer  dim  way  of  his  own,  lived  in  an 
obscure  hotel  of  the  rive  gauche.  After  Septimus  had 
chivalrously  given  Zora*s  sister  the  shelter  of  his  name  he 
found  for  Emmy  an  apartment  in  the  Boulevard  Raspail, 
repairing  himself  to  the  near-by  Hotel  Godet.  Of  some 
of  these  scenes  and  people  the  Pilgrim  quotes  from  a  let- 
ter recently  received  from  Mr.  Locke.  The  letter,  written 
from  Nice,  ends:  "You  see  I  am  in  the  delectable  land 
once  more,  after  five  years  of  gray  English  skies." 

I  am  afraid  I  can  give  you  nothing  very  useful  concerning  the 
provenance  (origin)  of  "The  Beloved  Vagabond."     Paragot  was 


SOME  OF  THE  LATER  ENGLISHMEN     145 

taken  from  no  individual.  When  starting  him  my  memory  went 
back  to  the  early  'eighties  when  I  used  to  fool  about  the  rive  gauche, 
and  where  one  often  saw,  in  the  same  cafe,  day  after  day,  some  el- 
derly philosophic  ruffian,  generally  fiercely  bearded,  laying  down  the 
law  on  sculpture,  painting,  and  the  non-existence  of  the  Deity. 
Some  were  veritable  debased  geniuses — Verlaine  of  course  the  shining 
exemplar — some  were  still  so-called  students,  because  they  liked  the 
idleness  and  the  aromatic  smell  of  the  "Boul.  Mich."  at  the  absinthe 
hour,  some  were  hungry  blackguards,  des  pique-as siette  (dinner 
hunters)  willing  for  a  consideration  to  render  the  young  and  shy  any 
kind  of  dubious  service. 

After  a  lapse  of  twenty  years — I  wrote  "The  Beloved  Vagabond" 
in  1905-06 — I  retained  no  memory  of  any  one  individual,  but  I 
fashioned  Paragot  out  of  my  blurred  impressions  of  the  type.  In 
fact,  all  the  characters  in  my  novels  are  drawn  either  from  type  or 
invented  as  a  possible  human  being.  I  have  never  drawn  from  the 
living  model. 

So  Aristide  Pujol  is  drawn  from  type.  You  can  see  him  at  any 
cafe  on  the  Cannebiere  of  Marseilles  or  at  commercial  table  Wholes 
at  Aix-en-Provence  or  Tarascon.  I  met  his  counterpart  for  two 
minutes,  in  Robinson  Crusoe  motoring  goatskins,  on  an  occasion 
when  I  had  lost  my  way  motoring,  and  with  excited  good  will  he  put 
me  wise. 

The  phrasing  of  the  end  of  the  last  sentence  is  clear 
evidence  that  Mr.  Locke's  visits  to  the  United  States 
have  not  been  entirely  fruitless. 


X.  ZOLA'S  PARIS 

The  Bitter  Years  of  Apprenticeship — The  World  Seen  from  a 
Garret — Employment  at  Hachette's — First  Published  Books — • 
At  Flaubert's  Table — The  Story  of  the  House  at  Medan — Paris 
Streets  and  the  Novels  of  the  " Rougon-Macquart" — Dram 
ShopSy  Markets,  and  Department  Stores. 

WITH  the  conspicuous  exception  of  Gustave 
Flaubert  there  was  hardly  a  master  of  French 
fiction  of  the  nineteenth  century  who  did  not 
serve  his  literary  apprenticeship  in  Bohemia,  using  that 
term  to  indicate  a  condition  of  dire  want  rather  than  a 
period  of  care-free  gayety.  Victor  Hugo,  already  ac- 
claimed as  the  "sublime  child,"  was  reduced  to  such 
existence  as  an  income  of  seven  hundred  francs  a  year 
made  possible.  Balzac  in  his  garret  in  the  Rue  Lesdi- 
guieres  undermined  his  health  and  shortened  his  days 
by  overwork  and  under  nourishment.  Dumas's  con- 
dition after  his  arrival  from  his  native  Villers-Cotterets 
was  financially  about  as  precarious  asthat  of  the  D'Artag- 
nan  of  his  creation,  coming  up  to  town  from  Tarbes. 
Daudet  and  his  brother  lived  in  an  attic  in  the  Rue 
MoufFetard.  Emile  Zola,  at  twenty-five  years  of  age, 
found  employment  that  paid  him  forty  cents  a  day. 
After  two  months  at  the  work  he  threw  it  up,  and  from 
the  beginning  of  March,  i860,  till  the  end  of  that  year 
then  all  through  1861,  and  the  first  three  months  of 

146 


ZOLA'S  PARIS  147 

1862,  he  led  what  one  of  his  biographers,  Ernest  Vize- 
telly,  has  called  "a  life  of  dire  Bohemian  poverty." 
Here  is  the  story  of  his  early  Paris  homes. 

On  his  arrival  in  Paris  in  February,  1858,  he  lived  with 
his  mother  at  No.  63  Rue  Monsieur  le  Prince.  That 
street,  which  Daudet  described  so  vividly  in  *'Les  Rois 
en  Exil"  as  the  home  of  Elysee  Meraut,  is  famihar  to 
any  one  with  any  knowledge  of  the  Latin  Quarter,  and 
retains  much  of  its  old-world  quaintness  and  flavour. 
From  there  the  Zolas  moved  In  January,  1859,  to  No.  241 
Rue  Saint-Jacques,  and  thence  in  April,  i860,  to  a  cheap- 
er lodging  at  No.  35  Rue  Saint-Victor,  a  short,  narrow 
street  still  to  be  found  near  the  Square  Monge.  There, 
according  to  Vizetelly,  Zola's  room  was  one  of  a  few 
lightly  built  garrets,  raised  over  the  house-roof  proper, 
and  constituting  a  seventh  "floor";  the  leads  in  front 
forming  a  terrace  whence  the  view  embraced  nearly 
all  Paris.  To  share  this  precarious  existence  came  Paul 
Cezanne,  and  the  two  friends  dreamed  of  conquering 
Paris,  one  as  a  poet,  and  the  other  as  a  painter.  In 
summer  they  often  spent  the  night  on  the  terrace  dis- 
cussing art  and  literature. 

But  matters  grew  worse  before  they  began  to  im- 
prove. Zola  was  obliged  to  part  from  his  mother,  who 
with  the  assistance  of  friends  and  her  own  skill  with 
the  needle  found  refuge  in  a  pension  in  the  quarter, 
while  the  son,  unwilling  longer  to  sponge  on  Cezarme, 
sought  an  even  humbler  attic  in  the  Rue  Neuve  Saint- 
Etienne-du-Mont,  near  the  ancient  church.  One  after 
another  his  few  belongings  were  carried  away  to  the 
pawn  shop;  occasionally  he  borrowed  a  small  sum  from 


148       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

an  acquaintance;  his  diet  was  bread  and  water,  with 
now  and  then  an  apple  or  a  bit  of  cheese;  a  pipeful  of 
tobacco  was  a  rare  luxury,  and  his  great  daily  problem 
was  to  find  three  sous  with  which'to  purchase  a  candle 
for  the  next  evening's  work.  Often  the  problem  was 
not  solved.  Lying  in  the  darkness  he  was  forced  to 
commit  to  memory  the  lines  of  verse  that  surged  in  his 
brain.  For  like  nearly  all  young  French  men  of  letters, 
it  was  to  poetry  that  Zola  first  turned. 

Finally,  for  non-payment  of  rent,  he  was  evicted  from 
the  attic  in  the  Rue  Neuve  Saint-Etienne-du-Mont,  and 
went  to  a  furnished  room  house  near  the  Pantheon  in 
the  Rue  Soufflet  before  that  street  had  been  widened 
to  the  dimensions  of  the  present  day.  The  life  there 
was  so  riotous  that  the  police  found  frequent  occasion 
to  interfere.  To  quote  Vizetelly  on  the  Latin  Quarter 
period  of  Zola's  life  and  its  influence  on  his  work  of 
later  years : 

The  long  winter  ends,  the  spring  comes,  and  Zola  turns  to  enjoy 
the  sun  rays — at  times  in  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  which  is  near  his 
lodging,  at  others  along  the  quais  of  the  Seine,  where  he  spends 
hours  among  the  thousands  of  second-hand  books  displayed  for 
sale  on  the  parapets.  And  all  the  life  of  the  river,  the  whole  pic- 
turesque panorama  of  the  quays  as  they  were  then,  becomes  fixed  in 
his  mind,  to  supply,  many  years  afterward,  the  admirable  descrip- 
tive passages  given  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  his  novel  "L'CEuvre." 
There  it  is  Claude  Lantier  who  is  shown  walking  the  quays  with  his 
sweetheart  Christine.  And  Zola  was  certainly  not  alone  every  time 
that  he  himself  paced  them.  We  know  to  what  a  young  man's  fancy 
turns  in  springtime.  He  lived,  moreover,  in  the  Quartier  Latin^ 
which  still  retained  some  of  its  old  freedom  of  life,  in  spite  of  the 
many  changes  it  was  undergoing. 


ZOLA'S  PARIS  149 

In  February,  1863,  Zola  entered  the  employ  of  the 
publishing  house  of  Hachette  and  Company  as  a  packer 
at  a  salary  of  one  hundred  francs  a  month.  Small  as 
the  sum  was  it  enabled  him  to  leave  Bohemia  behind, 
and  after  he  had  adjusted  himself  to  regular  hours,  his 
chief  worry  was  his  inability  to  read  all  the  books  that 
passed  through  his  hands.  After  leaving  the  Rue  Souf- 
flot  he  lived,  in  turn,  in  the  Impasse  Saint-Dominique, 
in  the  Rue  Neuve  de  la  Pepiniere,  and  then  in  the  Rue 
des  Feuillantines,  to  which  allusion  will  be  found  in  the 
chapter  on  Victor  Hugo.  It  was  there  that  he  began 
**La  Confession  de  Claude,"  which,  however,  was  laid 
aside  in  order  that  the  writer  might  devote  himself  to 
short  stories. 

One  day  Zola  submitted  the  manuscript  of  a  poetical 
trilogy  to  his  employer.  Hachette  would  not  publish, 
but  he  offered  encouragement,  and  raised  the  young 
man's  salary  to  two  hundred  francs  a  month.  That 
enabled  Zola  to  take  his  mother  again  to  live  with  him, 
and  the  two  found  quarters  in  the  Rue  Saint-Jacques, 
where  gathered  the  band  of  friends  afterward  de- 
scribed in  "L'CEuvre."  Then,  in  October,  1864,  the 
firm  of  Hetzel  and  Lacroix,  the  latter  the  ambitious 
publisher  of  "Les  Miserables,"  issued  Zola's  "Contes 
a  Ninon."  The  conditions  of  publication  were  that  the 
author  was  to  receive  no  immediate  payment,  but 
Zola  was  satisfied,  for  the  book  made  him  known  and 
served  as  an  entering  wedge  to  the  columns  of  the  news- 
papers and  the  reviews.  A  year  later  Lacroix  brought 
out  "La  Confession  de  Claude."  This  time  the  author 
received   a   10  per  cent,  royalty,  which  amounted  to 


150       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

six  cents  on  every  copy  sold.  The  entire  edition  was 
however  only  fifteen  hundred  copies,  and  Zola's  con- 
sequent profit  less  than  a  hundred  dollars.  Yet  he  felt 
himself  ready  to  give  up  his  position  at  Hachette's  and 
plunge  into  the  uncertain  stream  of  journalism  and 
literature. 

The  Paris  of  the  first  period  of  £mile  Zola's  Hfe  may 
be  summed  up  as  an  attic  in  the  Latin  Quarter;  of  the 
third  period,  a  country  house  in  a  remote  suburb;  the 
second  period  is  represented  by  a  dinner  table,  one  of 
the  most  famous  dinner  tables  of  literature,  that  of 
Gustave  Flaubert.  The  Rougon-Macquart  structure 
had  been  elaborately  planned,  the  Franco-Prussian  War 
had  taken  place,  driving  Zola  to  Marseilles  and  Bor- 
deaux, the  normal  tenor  of  Hfe  had  been  resumed  in  an 
atmosphere  of  steadily  increasing  prosperity.  Flau- 
bert's house  was  then  in  the  Rue  Murillo,  near  the  Pare 
Monceau,  and  there  Zola  became  an  habitue,  one  of 
the  intimate  circle  that  included,  besides  the  host,  Ed- 
mond  de  Goncourt  (Jules  de  Goncourt  had  recently 
died),  the  Russian  TurgeniefF,  Alphonse  Daudet,  and 
Flaubert's  pupil,  Guy  de  Maupassant,  then  in  his 
early  twenties.  "We  met  there  every  Sunday," 
Daudet  wrote  in  "Trente  Ans  de  Paris,"  "five  or 
six  of  us,  always  the  same,  upon  a  most  delightfully 
intimate  footing.  No  admittance  for  mutes  and 
bores." 

Even  when  the  dinners  were  held  elsewhere  than  in 
Flaubert's  house  they  seem  still  to  have  been  in  a  mea- 
sure Flaubert  dinners.  "It  was  about  this  time,"  con- 
tinues Daudet  in  "Trente  Ans  de  Paris,"  **that  the 


ZOLA'S  PARIS  151 

suggestion  was  made  of  a  monthly  meeting  around  a 
bountifully  spread  table;  it  was  called  the  'Flaubert 
dinner,' or  the  'dinner  of  authors  who  have  been  hissed.' 
Flaubert  was  admitted  by  virtue  of  the  failure  of  his 
*Candidat';  Zola,  with  *Bouton  de  Rose';  Goncourt,  with 
*Hehriette  Marechal' ;  I,  with  my  *Arlesienne.'  Girardin 
tried  to  insinuate  himself  into  our  circle;  he  was  not  a 
literary  man,  so  we  rejected  him.  As  for  TurgeniefF, 
he  gave  us  his  word  that  he  had  been  hissed  in  Russia; 
and  as  it  was  a  long  distance  away  we  did  not  go  there 
to  see. 

"There  could  be  nothing  more  delightful  than  these 
dinner  parties  of  friends,  where  we  talked  without  re- 
straint, with  minds  alert  and  elbows  on  the  tablecloth. 
Like  men  of  experience  we  were  all  gourmands.  There 
were  as  many  different  varieties  of  gluttony  as  there 
were  temperaments;  as  many  tastes  as  provinces  rep- 
resented. Flaubert  must  have  Normandy  butter  and 
Rouen  ducks  a  I'Houffade;  Edmond  de  Goncourt,  with 
his  deHcate,  exotic  appetite,  ordered  sweetmeats  fla- 
voured with  ginger;  Zola,  shell-fish;  TurgeniefF  smacked 
his  lips  over  the  caviare. 

"Ah!  we  were  not  easily  fed,  and  the  Parisian  res- 
taurants must  remember  us.  We  often  changed.  At 
one  time  we  dined  at  Adolphe  and  Pele's,  behind  the 
Opera,  at  another  time  on  the  Place  de  I'Opera- 
Comique;  then  at  Voisin's,  where  the  cellar  satisfied  all 
our  demands  and  won  the  favour  of  our  appetites.  We 
sat  down  at  seven  o'clock,  and  at  two  we  had  not  fin- 
ished. Flaubert  and  Zola  dined  in  their  shirt-sleeves. 
TurgeniefF  reclined  on  the  couch;  we  turned  the  waiters 


152       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

out  of  the  room — an  entirely  useless  precaution,  for 
Flaubert's  roar  could  be  heard  from  top  to  bottom  of  the 
house.  And  we  talked  literature.  We  always  had  one 
of  our  own  books  which  had  just  appeared." 

It  was  in  1877,  when  he  was  first  enriched  by  the 
sales  of  "L'Assommoir,"  that  Zola  discovered  the  house 
in  which  his  later  life  and  work  were  bound  up.  It 
is  perhaps  stretching  a  point  to  speak  of  Medan  as  Paris, 
for  it  is  a  little  town  of  the  remote  environs,  that  over- 
looks the  Seine,  beyond  Poissy.  Yet,  relatively,  the 
cottage  at  Fordham  was  as  far  from  the  city  when  Poe 
lived  there,  yet  it  is  always  considered  as  a  New  York 
home  of  the  author  of  "The  Raven."  And  Zola's 
Medan  house  has  a  story  that  is  well  worth  telHng.  Zola, 
who  at  first  wished  merely  to  rent  it,  was  persuaded  to 
buy,  the  original  purchase  price  being  nine  thousand 
francs.  That  was  only  the  beginning.  In  the  Medan 
property  that  survived  him  may  be  read  in  part  the 
story  of  his  literary  successes.  Most  of  his  money  was 
lavished  there.  The  first  additional  building  that  he 
caused  to  be  erected  was  a  large  square  tower  in  which 
was  a  spacious  workroom.  In  that  room  most  of  the 
later  books  were  written.  The  tower  was  the  "L'As- 
sommoir  Tower,"  for  it  was  built  from  part  of  the  re- 
turns from  "L'Assommoir.'*  In  time  a  second  tower 
was  added.  This  was  the  "Nana  Tower,"  a  memorial 
erected  from  the  proceeds  of  the  most  successful,  finan- 
cially, of  all  the  novels  of  the  Rougon-Macquart.  Other 
improvements  came  into  being  when  the  money  poured 
in  from  the  sales  of  "La  Terre,"  and  "La  Debacle." 
The  startling  interior  decoration  of  Medan  is  best  ex- 


ZOLA'S  PARIS  153 

plained  by  a  passage   from   "L'CEuvre,"  which  Zola 
deliberately  intended  as  a  self-revelation: 

The  drawing  room  was  becoming  crowded  with  old  furniture,  old 
tapestry,  nicknacks  of  all  countries  and  all  times — an  overflowing 
torrent  of  things  which  had  begun  at  BatignoUes  with  an  old  pot  of 
Rouen  ware,  which  Henriette  had  given  her  husband  on  one  of  his 
fete  days.  They  ran  about  the  curiosity  shops  together;  they  felt  a 
joyful  passion  for  buying;  and  he  now  satisfied  the  old  longings  of 
his  youth,  the  romanticist  aspirations  which  the  first  books  he  had 
read  had  engendered.  Thus  this  writer,  who  was  so  fiercely  modern, 
lived  among  the  worm-eaten  middle  ages  of  which  he  had  dreamed 
when  he  was  a  lad  of  fifteen.  As  an  excuse,  he  laughingly  declared 
that  the  handsome  modern  furniture  cost  too  much,  whereas  with  old 
things,  even  common  ones,  one  immediately  obtained  effect  and 
colour.  There  was  nothing  of  the  collector  about  him,  his  one  con- 
cern was  decoration,  broad  effects;  and  to  tell  the  truth,  the  drawing 
room,  lighted  by  two  lamps  of  old  Delft  ware,  derived  quite  a  soft, 
warm  tone  from  the  dull  gold  of  the  dalmaticas  used  for  upholstering 
the  seats,  the  yellow  incrustations  of  the  Italian  cabinets  and  Dutch 
show-cases,  the  faded  hues  of  Oriental  door-hangings,  the  hundred 
little  notes  of  the  ivory,  the  crockery  and  the  enamel  work,  pale 
with  age,  which  showed  against  the  dull  red  hangings. 

At  Med  an,  twenty  years  before  the  end,  Zola  foresaw 
such  a  sudden  death  as  was  his  eventual  fate,  and  the 
thought  of  it  haunted  him.  When  his  mother  died  it 
was  necessary  to  bring  the  coffin  down  by  way  of  the 
window,  for  Medan,  despite  all  its  towers,  had  only  a 
winding,  narrow  staircase.  Thereafter  Zola  was  never 
able  to  look  at  the  window  without  a  torturing  wonder 
as  to  when  the  time  was  coming  for  the  next  lowering. 
For  twenty  years  a  light  was  kept  burning  in  anticipa- 
tion.     But  Death,  striking  him  down,  chose  the  day 


154  THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

after  he  left  Medan  for  the  autumn  of  1902.  The 
sudden  and  tragic  end  came  in  an  apartment  in  the 
Rue  de  Bruxelles. 

Not  even  in  the  "Comedie  Humaine"  of  Balzac  is 
the  topography  of  Paris  so  minutely  studied,  or  the 
network  of  streets  and  boulevards  interwoven  so  inex- 
tricably into  the  warp  and  woof,  as  in  Zola's  history  of 
the  Rougon-Macquart.  In  setting  forth  his  purpose 
in  commencing  this  Histoire  Naturelle  et  Sociale  d*une 
Famille  sous  le  Second  Empire  Zola  wrote  of  it  as  fol- 
lows: 

I  desire  to  explain  how  a  single  family,  a  little  group  of  human 
beings,  comes  into  relation  with  society  at  large,  as  it  increases  by 
begetting  and  giving  birth  to  ten  or  tvv^enty  individuals,  who,  though 
at  first  sight  they  seem  quite  dissimilar,  when  analyzed  reveal  how 
intimately  they  are  bound  together,  since  heredity  has  laws  as  well 
as  mathematics.  The  members  of  the  family  Rougon-Macquart, 
the  one  group  that  it  is  my  purpose  to  depict,  have  as  a  family  trait 
the  gnawing  of  lust,  of  appetite  that  leaps  to  its  gratification.  His- 
torically they  are  part  of  the  people;  they  make  themselves  felt  by 
contemporary  society;  they  rise  to  see  spheres  of  life  by  that  char- 
acteristically modern  impulse  which  the  lower  classes  feel;  and  they 
thus  explain  the  Second  Empire  by  their  individual  histories. 

When,  in  1878,  "Un  Page  d'Amour,"  the  ninth  vol- 
ume of  the  Rougon-Macquart,  appeared,  Zola  published 
with  it  his  first  draft  of  the  family  tree,  together  with 
the  statement  that  he  left  it  just  as  it  was  drawn  up 
before  a  line  of  "La  Fortune  des  Rougon,"  the  opening 
story,  was  written.  An  enlarged  and  amplified  tree 
which  appeared  with  "Le  Docteur  Pascal,"  the  closing 


155 


iS6       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

volume  of  the  series,  proved  that  the  original  scheme 
had  been  adhered  to  throughout.  Of  course  when  Zola 
undertook  his  task  there  was  nothing  to  warn  him  of  the 
imminence  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  and  the  Com- 
mune, which  afterward  afforded  him  the  dramatic 
climax  for  "La  Debacle."  But  he  himself  felt  that 
these  incidents  cost  him  more  than  he  gained,  by  dis- 
arranging his  plans  and  hastening  the  denouement  of 
certain  novels,  notably  that  of  "Nana,"  whose  heroine 
he  was  forced  to  kill  off  at  least  ten  years  before  he 
had  intended. 

Recalling  Zola's  own  early  life  in  the  Rue  Saint- 
Victor,  the  Rue  Soufflot,  and  the  Rue  Monsieur  le  Prince, 
his  comparative  neglect  of  the  section  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg, the  University,  the  Latin  Quarter — in  fact,  the 
whole  region  lying  south  of  the  Seine — is  somewhat  sur- 
prising. His  natural  life  brought  him  little  in  contact 
with  Montmartre,  yet  the  sacred  "butte"  figures  in 

his  novels  more  than 
any  other  of  the  fau- 
bourgsof  Paris.  It 
was  in  Montmartre 
that  Mme.  Mechain, 
the  blackmailer  of 
"L'Argent,"  collected 
rents  from  the  laby- 
rinth of  filthy  hovels 
known  as  the  "City  of 
Naples."  It  was  to  Montmartre  that  Claude  Lantier 
turned  from  the  Rue  Douai  in  search  of  the  new  studio, 
which  he  found  back  of  the  cemetery,  in  the  Rue  Tour- 


THE    CABARET    OF   THE    ASSASSINS.      AN 
OUTPOST  OF  THE  "CITY  OF  NAPLES."  ZOLA's 

"l'argent." 


ZOLA'S  PARIS 


157 


laque,  an  old,  tumble-down,  abandoned  tannery  that 
let  in  the  sun  and  rain  through  gaping  cracks.  Above 
all,  Montmartre  dominated  the  last  volume  of  the  Three 
Cities  trilogy.  It  was  the  vantage  point  from  which 
Pierre  Froment,  the  sceptical  young  priest,  studied  the 
vast  city  before  him:  Paris,  personified  and  capricious, 
changing  her  mood 
with  every  hour  of  the 
day;  "Paris  of  mys- 
tery, shrouded  by 
clouds,  buried  beneath 
the  ashes  of  some 
disaster";  "a  limpid, 
lightsome  Paris  be- 
neath the  pink  glow  of 
a  spring-like  evening"; 
"Paris  lying  stretched 
out  like  a  lizard  in  the 
sun";  "Paris,  which 
the  divine  sun  had  sown 
with  light,  and  where 
in  glory  waved  the 
great  future  harvest  of 
Truth  and  Justice." 

But  in  the  main  the  Paris  of  the  Rougon-Macquart 
was  the  heart  of  the  modem  city,  the  quarters  lying 
within  half  a  mile  of  the  Bank  of  France.  In  that 
region  is  the  Bourse,  personified  in  "L'Argent";  the 
Halles  Centrales,  of  "Le  Ventre  de  Paris";  the  great 
stretches  most  aflPected  by  the  Haussmannising  under 
the  Second  Empire  that  was  the  very  life  blood  of  "La 


APPROACHING  THE  BASILIfiUE  DU 
SACRE-CCEUR 


158       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Curee";  the  stair-cases  and  landings  of  **Pot-Bouille"; 
the  department  stores  of  Au  Bonheur  des  Dames; 
and,  among  the  many  scenes  of  "Nana,'*  the  Grand 
Hotel  in  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines  where  the  courte- 
san was  stretched  on  her  death  bed  as  the  maddened 
crowds  below  were  shouting  "A  BerHn!  A  Berhn! 
A  Berhn!"  Incidentally,  as  an  indication  of  the  ex- 
treme care  with  which  Zola  worked  it  is  told  that  in 
preparation  for  the  scene  last  mentioned  he  employed 
a  friend  to  obtain  precise  information  about  the  aspect 
of  those  rooms  on  the  top  floor  of  the  Grand  Hotel  and 
the  view  from  them. 

A  favourite  haunt  of  Saccard  pere  and  Saccard  fib 
of  "La  Curee"  was  the  Cafe  Anglais  in  the  Boulevard 
des  Italiens.  That  establishment  closed  its  doors 
in  April,  191 3.  In  the  days  of  the  Second  Empire  other 
men  than  adventurers  like  the  Saccards  frequented  it. 
It  was  a  kind  of  a  literary  club,  and  there  Mery,  Jules 
Janin,  Alphonse  Karr,  and  Theophile  Gautier  sat  side 
by  side.  The  elder  Dumas  divided  his  time  on  the 
boulevards  between  the  Cafe  Anglais  and  the  old 
Maison  Doree,  and  at  a  table  in  the  former  was  in  the 
habit  of  sitting  down  to  write  his  daily  contribution 
to  the  Mousquetaire.  It  was  in  the  near-by  Rue 
Basse  du  Renfort  that  Renee,  in  "La  Curee,"  forced 
Maxime  to  take  her  to  a  ball  given  by  the  demi- 
mondaine  Blanche  Miiller;  and  the  evening,  with  its  in- 
famous sequel,  ended  in  the  white-  and  gold-chamber 
of  the  Cafe  Riche,  "furnished  with  the  coquetries  of  a 
boudoir, "  with  its  atmosphere  of  stale  passions,  its  tell- 
tale record  of  scratched  names. 


ZOLA'S  PARIS  159 

The  Boulevard  des  Italiens,  perhaps  the  most  famous 
stretch  of  the  arc  extending  from  the  Madeleine  to  the 
Bastille,  took  its  name  from  the  old  Theatre  des  It- 
aliens,  which  has  been  replaced  by  the  Opera  Comique. 
In  the  old  theatre  Renee  and  Maxime  saw  Ristori  in 
"Phedre,"  a  play  fraught  with  tragic  significance  to 
them.  Passing  from  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  to 
the  Boulevard  Montmartre,  we  find,  on  the  south  side, 
the  covered  Passage  des  Panoramas,  next  to  the  Theatre 
des  Varietes.  There  Count  Muflfat  used  to  wait  for 
Nana  to  come  from  the  theatre,  and,  in  "L'Argent," 
Saccard  caught  Mme.  Conin  coming  from  a  rendez- 
vous. The  Passage  des  Panoramas  leads  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Bourse,  and  in  the  neighbouring  streets 
passed  the  whole  drama  of  "L'Argent,"  involving  the 
Banque  Universelle,  the  cold-blooded  scheming  of  the 
Jew,  Gundermann,  who  "triumphed  because  he  had  no 
passions,"  and  the  final  downfall  of  Saccard  and  his 
visions  of  financial  conquest.  The  Universelle  was  in 
reality  the  Union  Generate,  which  had  been  founded  as 
a  great  Christian  bank,  blessed  by  Pope  Leo  XIII, 
and,  a  few  years  before  Zola  began  the  writing  of  the 
tale,  smashed  by  Lebaudy,  the  Sugar  King,  whose 
eccentric  son  achieved  world-wide  notoriety  first  as 
**Le  Petit  Sucrier,"  and  later  as  the  "Emperor  of  the 
Sahara."  Of  all  his  books  before  "La  Debacle,"  Zola 
found  "L'Argent"  the  most  difficult  to  write.  He  had 
among  his  friends  no  financiers,  he  had  never  gambled 
on  the  Bourse,  and  he  lacked  information  regarding  the 
inner  working  of  what  the  French  call  the  haute  banque. 
Months  of  first-hand  study  of  the  Bourse  and  the  sur- 


i6o       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

rounding  streets  were  needed  to  overcome  these  dis- 
advantages. 

From  the  Bourse  continue  to  the  near-by  Place  des 
Victoires,  with  its  equestrian  statue  of  Louis  XIV, 
for  the  atmosphere  of  another  book  of  the  Rougon- 
Macquart.  Through  the  Place  the  wedding  party  in 
**L'Assommoir"  passed  on  the  way  to  the  Louvre. 
Beneath  the  statue  there  was  a  stop  while  Gervaise 
re-tied  the  lacing  of  her  shoe.  Retracing  the  route 
by  which  the  party  came,  along  the  Rue  du  Mail  and 
the  Rue  de  Clery,  and  then  striking  in  a  northwesterly 
direction,  one  reaches  the  heart  of  the  land  of  *'L'As- 
sommoir,"  the  Boulevard  de  Rochechouart,  which  in 
those  days  was  the  region  of  abattoirs.  There,  in  a 
shabby  little  hotel,  Lantier  deserted  Gervaise  and  the 
two  boys;  there  Coupeau  met  her,  married  her,  and 
they  lived  happily  until  the  accident  that  so  changed 
the  current  of  Coupeau's  life.  Near-by,  in  the  Boule- 
vard de  la  Chapelle,  was  the  Moulin  d'Argent,  where 
the  wedding  party  had  their  pique-nique  d  cent  sous 
par  tete^  and  paralleling  the  boulevard  to  the  north  is 
the  Rue  de  la  Goutte  d'Or,  where  Nana  was  born  and 
where  Coupeau  was  carried  after  his  fall  from  the  roof 
in  the  Rue  de  la  Nation.  In  writing  "L'Assommoir," 
which  was  the  book  that  raised  him  to  fame,  Zola  was 
for  a  long  time  at  a  loss  for  an  intrigue  that  would  prop- 
erly weld  the  chief  scenes  of  the  story  together.  The 
idea  of  taking  a  girl  of  the  people,  who  falls  and  bears 
her  seducer  two  children,  and  then  marries  another  man, 
establishes  herself  in  profitable  business  by  hard  work 
bu.t  is  borne  down  by  the  conduct  of  her  husband  who 


ZOLA'S  PARIS  i6i 

becomes  a  drunkard,  had  previously  occurred  to  him, 
figuring  indeed  in  the  original  geneological  tree  which 
he  had  drawn  up  for  the  Rougon-Macquart,  but  he  felt 
that  the  husband's  drunkenness  might  not  fully  account 
for  the  wife's  downfall,  and  he  remained  at  a  loss  how  to 
continue  until,  all  at  once,  there  flashed  to  his  mind 
the  solution.  By  bringing  the  woman's  original  se- 
ducer back  into  her  home  everything  would  be  made 
possible. 

Crowded  with  associations  of  the  Rougon-Macquart 
is  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  There  was  Saccard's  first  home 
after  his  marriage  with  Renee.  There  his  confederate, 
Larsonneau,  established  his  office,  removing  from  the 
old  haunt  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  after  their  first  real- 
estate  stroke  involving  the  property  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Pepiniere.  At  the  comer  of  the  Rue  de  I'Oratoire,  a 
shortstreet  running  diagonally  back  to  the  Rue  Saint- 
Honore,  was  the  house  in  which  Mme.  Josserand,  in 
*'Pot-Bouille,"  spent  the  evening  with  her  two  daugh- 
ters, and  then,  raging  at  the  failure  of  her  matrimonial 
schemes,  made  them  return  home  on  foot  in  the  pouring 
rain.  The  zig-zag  nature  of  the  journey  is  explained 
by  the  fact  that  there  was  then  no  spacious  Avenue  de 
rOpera  leading  from  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  to  the  great 
boulevards.  The  Rue  d'Alger  is  the  next  paralleling 
thoroughfare  to  the  east  of  the  Rue  Castiglione.  At  the 
corner  of  that  street  and  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  fronting  the 
Tuileries  Gardens,  was  the  apartment  of  Mme.  Des- 
farges,  one  of  the  clients  of  au  Bonheur  des  Dames. 
There  Octave  Mouret  went  to  consult  Baron  Hartmann, 
who  was  supposed  to  pay  the  running  expenses  of  the 


i62       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

establishment,  about  the  opening  of  a  new  avenue — 
called  "Dix  Decembre"  in  the  story:  probably  the  Rue 
Quatre  Septembre  of  subsequent  reality — ^with  a  view 
to  obtaining  an  advantageous  frontage  for  his  depart- 
ment store.  The  name  Hartmann  is  strikingly  sug- 
gestive of  the  personage  who  was  such  a  factor  in  the 
making  of  the  new  Paris.  Before  sitting  down  to 
write  **Au  Bonheur  -des  Dames"  Zola  had  made  an 
exhaustive  study  of  the  daily  lives  of  the  workers  in 
such  huge  Paris  drapery  establishments  as  the  Bon 
Marche,  the  Louvre,  and  the  Printemps. 


XI.   THE   PARIS  OF   GUY   DE  MAUPASSANT 

The  Real  Bel- A  mi — The  Key  to  the  Characters — Maupassant's 
Heritage  and  Training — The  Years  of  Achievement — The  Day's 
Work — The  Valet,  Francois — The  Gathering  Shadows — The 
Downfall. 

UNTIL  a  few  years  ago  at  least,  a  conspicuous 
figure  in  the  afternoon  parade  along  the  Avenue 
des  Champs-filysees  out  to  the  Bois  de  Boulogne 
and  back  again  was  a  fastidiously  dressed  man,  who, 
from  the  seat  of  his  victoria,  surveyed  with  .eyes  that 
were  half  intolerant,  half  supercilious  the  pietons  on  the 
sidewalks  and  the  occupants  of  passing  horse-drawn 
vehicles.  Toward  the  stream  of  motor-cars  that  year 
by  year  grew  in  volume  his  glances  were  of  almost 
malignant  hostility.  The  mechanical  vehicle  he  held 
to  be  an  intrusion,  and  the  plaything  of  the  vulgar.  But 
the  steeds  that  conveyed  him  to  and  fro  were  of  the 
finest  breed  and  the  last  word  in  grooming;  and  to  the 
end  liis  attitude  toward  the  world  was  the  attitude 
affected  by  the  penniless  young  clerk  in  a  railway  office, 
who,  one  evening,  met  the  journalist  Forestier  in  the 
Boulevard  des  Italiens,  and  gladly  accepted  the  loan 
of  two  louis  which  he  never  repaid.  For  the  man 
was  the  original  of  George  Duroy,  later  Du  Roy  de 
Cantel,  of  Guy  de  Maupassant's  *' Bel-Ami.'* 

i6i 


i64       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

There  is  said  to  exist  a  set  of  Maupassant's  books 
on  the  margins  of  which  he  jotted  down  the  real  names 
of  every  person  and  place  he  described.  Even  further 
than  Alphonse  Daudet  he  carried  this  passion  for  per- 
sonalities. The  George  Duroy  of  "  Bel-Ami "  has  been 
mentioned.  The  real  Boule-de-Suif  was  one  Adrienne 
Legay,  who  lived  in  Rouen  at  the  time  of  the  War  of 
1870,  and  who  died  in  poverty  about  two  years  after 
Maupassant  himself  passed  away  in  the  maison  de  sante 
of  Doctor  Blanche.  The  heroine  of  "Une  Vie"  is  said 
to  have  been  drawn  from  his  own  mother,  as  Dickens 
put  his  mother  in  Mrs  Nickleby,  and  Thackeray  drew 
upon  his — together  with  his  wife  and  Mrs  Brookfield — ■ 
in  the  making  of  Amelia  Sedley.  It  was  about  a  year 
ago  that  a  line  from  Paris  told  of  the  death  of  the  man 
whom  Maupassant  invested  with  the  complicated 
qualities  of  Olivier  Bertin  in  "Fort  Comme  la  Mort." 
The  Madame  de  Burne  of  "Notre  Coeur"  is  supposed 
to  have  been  the  mysterious  lady — the  "lady  of  the 
pearl-grey  dress*' — whose  repeated  visits  to  Maupas- 
sant, in  the  last  years  at  Cannes,  so  distressed  the  valet, 
Fran9ois.  The  originals  of  the  Comtesse  de  Guillery,  of 
Forestier  and  Madame  Forestier,  later  Madame  Du  Roy 
de  Cantel,  of  Clotilde,  and  of  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Walter  of  "Bel-Ami"  were  perfectly  well  known  to  a 
score  of  Maupassant's  personal  friends.  The  chapters 
describing  modern  Parisian  journalism  were  based  upon 
his  own  experiences  in  the  offices  of  certain  papers, 
notably  the  Gaulois. 

For  all  practical  purposes  the  Paris  upon  which  Guy 
de  Maupassant  drew  so  freely  in  the  course  of  his  six 


IN  THE   PARC  MONCtAU 


THE  PARIS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  165 

novels,  his  fifteen  or  twenty  stones  that  range  from 
twelve  to  twenty-five  thousand  words,  and  his  in- 
numerable conies,  is  the  Paris  of  to-day,  or,  at  least,  the 
Paris  that  we  knew  prior  to  the  ist  of  August,  1914. 
It  is  the  city  of  pleasure  and  industry  that  is  reflected 
in  his  pages — the  great 
sweep  of  the  boule- 
vards, the  offices  of 
bureaucracy,  the  hives 
of  journalism,  the 
bowered  driveways  of 
the  Bois,  or  the  Rond- 
Point  glinting  in  the 
afternoon  sunshine,  the 
humming    activity   of 

the  great  shops  of  fashion  that  line  the  Rue  de  la  Paix 
and  the  Avenue  de  1'  Opera.  But  here  and  there  a  park 
plays  its  inevitable  part,  for  when  the  warp  of  the  story 
did  not  permit  the  author  to  carry  his  characters  away, 
following  his  own  inclination,  to  the  waters  of  the  Seine 
at  Bougival  or  Malmaison,  or  to  the  Foret  de  Fontaine- 
bleau,  that  love  of  the  country  that  was  in  his  blood 
turned  him  to  the  Pare  Monceau,  or  the  Gardens  of  the 
Luxembourg,  or  the  Buttes-Chaumont,  or  the  Ceme- 
tery of  Montmartre  or  the  Cemetery  of  Pere  Lachaise. 
Among  Maupassant's  novels  there  is  one  that  is 
blatant  of  modern  Paris.  There  is  Paris  in  "Fort 
Comme  la  Mort,"  in  "Notre  Coeur";  touches  of  it  even 
in  "Une  Vie,"  "Mont  Oriol,"  and  "Pierre  et  Jean." 
But  in  these  books  the  scenes  are  merely  incidental;  a 
home  had  to  be  found  for  Madame  de  Bume,  Andre 


i66       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Mariolle,  or  Olivier  Bertin — a  background  for  this 
encounter,  for  that  prearranged  meeting.  But  the 
sweep  of  the  city,  its  vastness,  its  complexity,  its  cruel 
energy,  its  pitiless  struggle,  throb  in  every  page  of  "Bel- 
Ami."  The  book  begins  in  the  Rue  Notre  Dame  de 
Lorette;  it  ends  in  the  Madeleine.  That  tells  a  signi- 
ficant story. 

From  the  Rue  Notre  Dame  de  Lorette,  George 
Duroy — ex-trooper  in  Algeria,  now  a  clerk  in  a  railway 
office  on  a  salary  that  barely  permits  him  to  exist — 
strolls  of  an  evening  down  to  the  boulevards  to  watch 
enviously  those  more  favoured  of  fortune  taking  their 
amusement.  Crossing  the  Place  de  I'Opera,  he  meets 
Forestier,  a  comrade  of  the  former  days  in  the  service, 
and  the  encounter  changes  his  entire  life.  The  forty 
francs  that  the  journalist  thrusts  in  his  hand  lead  to  an 
adventure  that  night  at  the  Folies-Bergere.  The  fol- 
lowing evening  he  dines  with  the  Forestiers  and  their 
guests  in  the  Rue  Fontaine.  Given  a  footing  as  a  re- 
porter on  the  Vie  Frangaisey  he  soon  acquires  in  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  that  surface  scum  Paris  which,  to 
the  eyes  of  the  stranger,  obscures  the  clearer  waters 
below.  The  soul  of  the  city  he  never  probes;  but  with 
its  body  and  the  sores  of  its  body  he  is  soon  as  famihar 
as  any  glazed-hat  driver  of  a  night  fiacre. 

In  the  later  years  of  his  life  in  Paris  Maupassant 
lived  in  the  Rue  Montchanin,  a  little  street  to  the  north 
of  the  Pare  Monceau,  near  where  the  Avenue  Villiers 
crosses  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes.  His  was  not  the 
feverish  physical  activity  of  Balzac  that  sent  the  creator 
of  the  "Comedie  Humaine"  to  every  corner  of  Paris 


THE  PARIS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  167 

before  selecting  the  edifice  that  was  to  serve  as  the 
setting  for  a  projected  tale.  It  was  easier  and  it  saved 
time  to  describe  structures  nearer  at  hand;  so  almost 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  house  in  the  Rue  Mont- 
chanin  will  be  found  the  streets  associated  with  more 
than  half  of  the  Maupassant  tales.  They  lie  along  the 
line  of  what  are  generally  known  as  the  Boulevards 
Exterieurs:  the  Boulevard  de  Courcelles,  the  Boulevard 
des  Batignolles,  the  Boulevard  de  Clichy,  and  the 
Boulevard  Rochechouart. 

To  understand  Guy  de  Maupassant's  attitude  toward 
Paris  it  is  necessary  to  consider  his  life  in  general,  his 
heritage,  his  training,  and  his  environment.  He  was 
born  August  5,  1850,  in  the  Chateau  de  Miromesnil, 
about  eight  miles  from  Dieppe  on  the  Norman  coast. 
Breathing  deeply  in  his  cradle  of  the  salt  of  the  sea,  to 
the  end  of  his  days  ever  turning  to  its  imperious  call, 
there  was  always,  in  his  bearing  toward  Paris,  something 
of  the  hostihty  of  the  stranger.  Maupassant's  father, 
Gustave  de  Maupassant,  belonged  to  a  Lorraine  family 
that  had  established  itself  in  Normandy  nearly  a  hun- 
dred years  before  the  birth  of  the  noveHst.  The  family 
had  been  ennobled  by  the  Emperor  Francis — in  fact, 
had  the  right  to  carry  the  title  of  marquis.  Upon  this 
right,  Guy,  even  in  the  years  when  he  was  most  assidu- 
ously courting  Parisian  society,  never  traded.  In  that 
respect  he  was  no  "Bel-Ami."  In  1846  Gustave  de 
Maupassant  espoused  Mile.  Laure  Le  Poittevain,  of 
a  family  of  the  upper  Norman  bourgeoisie.  As  chil- 
dren, Laure  and  her  brother  Alfred  had  been  com- 
rades of  Gustave  Flaubert,  a  fact  which  may  be  ac- 


i68       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

cepted  as  explaining  the  ardour  with  which  in  after  years 
the  author  of  "Madame  Bovary"  devoted  himself  to 
Guy's  literary  training. 

The  marriage  of  Guy's  parents  did  not  turn  out  hap- 
pily, and  soon  after  the  birth  of  a  second  son — Herve, 
six  years  younger  than  Guy — an  amicable  separation 
was  arranged,  by  the  terms  of  which  Madame  de  Mau- 
passant took  back  her  own  fortune,  retained  the  chil- 
dren, and,  for  their  support,  received  from  her  husband 
the  sum  of  sixteen  hundred  francs  a  year.  She  made 
her  home  in  Etretat,  between  Havre  and  Fecamp  on 
the  Norman  coast,  and  it  was  there  that  the  boys  passed 
the  greater  part  of  their  childhood.  Until  he  was  thir- 
teen Guy's  education  was  of  an  exceedingly  desultory 
nature,  with  his  mother  practically  his  only  instructor. 
When  he  entered  the  seminary  at  Yvetot  he  found  the 
discipline  and  the  society  of  his  commonplace  school- 
mates in  unhappy  contrast  to  the  free  life  by  the  sea. 

Then  came  the  Lycee,  in  Rouen.  There  he  was  hap- 
pier, and  he  worked  diligently,  winning  his  degree 
without  trouble.  He  had  already  decided  upon  a 
literary  career^  and,  as  has  been  so  usual  with  French 
men  of  letters,  he  began  by  writing  verse.  At  that 
period  of  his  life  he  seems  to  have  been  a  creature  of 
great  gayety  and  abounding  animal  spirits.  That 
splendid  physical  strength,  which,  outwardly  at  least, 
he  always  retained,  and  which  enabled  him  as  a  swim- 
mer to  buffet  the  waves  for  hours  at  a  time — he  once 
rescued  Swinburne  when  the  English  poet  was  drowning 
— had,  of  course,  not  been  impaired  by  excess  or  over- 
work.    There  are  many  anecdotes  of  that  time  that 


THE  PARIS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  169 

explain  the  formation  of  the  writer,  and  particularly 
his  methods  of  observation.  An  English  maiden  lady 
on  whom  the  high-spirited  youth  played  a  practical 
joke  later  served  as  the  model  for  "Miss  Harriet." 
All  that  he  owed  to  Normandy,  to  the  peasants,  the 
sailors,  the  country  priests,  the  keepers  of  taverns — 
all  the  vivid  impressions  that  were  to  play  so  prominent 
a  part  in  his  life  work — were  then  assimilated.  Then, 
in  the  spring  after  the  War  of  1870,  when  he  was  in  his 
twenty-first  year,  he  went  to  Paris.  He  obtained  a 
clerkship  in  the  Department  of  Marine  that  paid  him  a 
yearly  salary  of  fifteen  hundred  francs.  Later  he  found 
a  more  lucrative  place  in  the  Department  of  Public  In- 
struction. As  an  employee  of  the  State  he  was  by  no 
means  overzealous.  His  leisure  hours  he  devoted  to 
boating  on  the  Seine;  at  the  office  he  scribbled  on  the 
paper  of  the  administration  the  verses  and  essays  that 
on  Sundays  he  submitted  to  Flaubert's  criticism. 

That  criticism,  supervision,  and  direction  lasted  for 
seven  years — from  1873  till  1880.  It  consisted  of  de- 
veloping the  powers  of  observation,  of  impressing  upon 
the  youth  the  older  man's  arduous  creed  of  style,  of 
curbing  with  a  firm  hand  the  natural  desire  for  prema- 
ture publication.  At  the  Sunday  Flaubert  table  young 
Maupassant  was  a  frequent  guest.  There  he  met  on 
terms  of  easy  equality  the  leading  men  of  letters  of 
France:  Edmond  de  Goncourt,  Zola,  Alphonse  Daudet, 
Catulle  Mendes,  TurgeniefF,  and  others.  The  ap- 
prenticeship came  to  an  end  in  1878  when  "Boule-de- 
Suif"  was  included  in  the  "Soirees  de  Medan." 

Admirable  as  it  unquestionably  is  as  a  story,  "Boule- 


170       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

de-Suif "  was  essentially  a  tour  de  jorce.  The  more 
natural  expression  of  Maupassant's  talent  was  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  bureaucratic  life  about  him,  and 
of  those  Parisian  scenes  and  streets  with  which  his 
daily  activities  as  an  employee  brought  him  in  contact. 
The  story  of  Maupassant's  Hfe  from  1880  to  1890  is 
the  story  of  his  books.  In  the  ten  years  he  produced 
six  novels,  sixteen  volumes  of  short  stories,  three  vol- 
umes of  travel,  besides  numerous  newspaper  articles 
that  have  not  been  included  in  the  various  editions  of 
his  works.  His  average  was  rather  more  than  three 
books  a  year,  a  result  that  he  achieved  by  the  regularity 
of  his  work.  He  wrote  every  morning  from  seven 
o'clock  till  noon,  turning  out  at  least  six  pages  a  day. 
Flaubert,  his  master,  revised  and  revised,  sometimes 
spending  days  over  a  single  sentence,  groping  furiously 
for  hours  in  the  pursuit  of  the  exact  word.  Maupassant, 
as  fastidious  as  Flaubert  in  the  matter  of  style,  found 
expression  so  easy  that  he  rarely  erased.  It  was  his 
habit,  contrary  to  general  opinion,  to  make  a  prelimi- 
nary draft  of  a  story.  According  to  one  of  his  friends 
he  never  went  to  bed  without  jotting  down  notes  of 
all  that  had  impressed  him  during  the  day.  Precision 
in  the  matter  of  minute  details  was  his  creed.  For 
example,  in  "La  Maison  TelHer,"  over  which  he  tolled 
for  months,  there  Is  a  scene  introducing  English  and 
French  sailors.  Being  entirely  Ignorant  of  the  English 
language  he  went  to  TurgeniefF  In  order  to  inform 
himself  exactly  as  to  the  words  of  "Rule  Britannia.** 
Where  it  was  a  case  of  a  Paris  street  or  structure  he 
was  equally  precise.     In  "L'Herltage,**  that   sinister 


THE  PARIS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  171 

tale  of  a  conditional  inheritance,  the  information  that 
the  story  conveys  is  that  M.  CacheHn  Hved  in  the  upper 
end  of  the  Rue  Rochechouart,  a  street  that  may  roughly 
be  described  as  being  not  very  far  from  the  Gare  du 
Nord.  It  is  related  that  Maupassant  made  a  careful 
study  of  every  house  of  that  street  near  its  Boulevard- 
Rochechouart  end,  until  he  found  the  one  structure 
that  fitted  the  purposes  of  his  narrative.  The  little 
apartment  in  the  Rue  de  Constantinople,  just  back  of 
the  Gare  Saint-Lazare,  where,  in  "Bel-Ami,"  Mme, 
de  Marelle  and  George  Duroy  had  their  meetings,  is 
said  to  have  been  drawn  from  an  apartment  associated 
with  certain  episodes  in  the  author's  own  life  as  a  man 
of  gallantry.  There  was  perhaps  a  generality  in  placing 
the  office  of  La  Vie  Frangaise,  where  Duroy  won  his 
spurs  in  journalism,  in  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere; 
for  locating  a  Parisian  newspaper  in  that  neighbourhood 
was  something  like  ascribing  the  office  of  a  New  York 
daily  to  Park  Row,  or  a  London  daily  to  Fleet  Street. 
In  its  sweep,  "Bel-Ami,"  more  than  any  other  novel 
of  Maupassant,  is  compact  of  modern  Paris.  The 
very  essence  of  the  evening  life  of  the  great  boulevard, 
with  its  sidewalk  tables  and  its  flaneurs y  is  in  the  open- 
ing scene,  culminating  with  Duroy's  encounter  with 
his  comrade  of  the  Algerian  army  days,  Forestier. 
In  turn  the  narrative  shifts  to  the  Folies-Bergere,  to 
,  the  home  of  the  Forestiers,  No.  17  Rue  Fontaine,  to 
that  of  the  Marelles,  to  Duroy's  own  miserable  dwelling, 
to  the  Bois,  to  the  church  into  which  the  adventurer 
pursued  Mme.  Walter,  to  various  restaurants  and 
artists'  studios,  and  finally  to  the  stately  Madeleine, 


172       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS_ 

where,  with  ecclesiastical  blessing  and  admonition, 
George  Du  Roy  de  Cantel  and  Suzanne  Walter  were 
made  man  and  wife. 

The  Paris  of  "Bel-Ami"  is  essentially  the  Paris  of 
"Notre  Coeur,"  of  "Fort  Comme  la  Mort,"  of  "Mon- 
sieur Parent,"  of  "L'  Inutile  Beaute,"  and  "L'Herit- 
age."  It  was  touched  in  "Pierre  et  Jean,"  "Mont 
Oriol,"  and  "Une  Vie."  But  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  continual  change  and  travel  that  were  such  factors 
in  Maupassant's  own  life  after  his  first  taste  of  success 
should  have  been  reflected  in  the  most  Parisian  of  his 
novels.  Two  journeys,  one  to  Cannes  and  the  other  to 
Rouen,  play  parts  in  "Bel-Ami."  The  Norman  Mont 
Saint-Michel  and  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau  are  woven 
into  "Notre  Coeur."  In  his  books,  as  in  his  own  exist- 
ence, Maupassant  needed  a  diversion  from  the  feverish 
turmoil  of  Paris.  If  he  himself  could  spare  time  for 
summer  weeks  between  the  falaises  of  Etretat,  for 
cruises  in  Mediterranean  waters,  for  voyages  to  Italy, 
Corsica,  Sicily,  and  Algeria,  he  felt  that  his  characters 
were  entitled  to  a  similar  privilege.  Then  too,  despite 
a  certain  undeniable  vein  of  snobbishness,  which  led  him 
to 'profess  a  preference  for  the  company  of  men  and 
women  of  society  over  that  of  his  fellow  literary 
workers,  Maupassant's  liking  for  the  grand  monde  was 
never  thoroughly  genuine.  He  became  a  man  of 
fashion;  he  was  sought  after  and  welcomed  in  the^ 
most  exclusive  circles;  to  his  talent  even  the  doors  of 
the  old  nobility  were  opened;  yet  his  attitude  was  ever 
one  of  cold  politeness  and  affected  disdain. 

The  formal  Maupassant  biography  is  that  of  Maynial. 


THE  PARIS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  173 

But  six  or  seven  years  ago  there  appeared  the  "Recol- 
lections of  Maupassant's  valet."  Major  Arthur  Pen- 
dennis's  man-servant,  Morgan,  taking  leave  of  his 
master  in  some  dissatisfaction,  debated  whether  he 
should  go  in  for  literature  or  politics.  Had  he  chosen 
the  former  career,  and  become  the  historian  of  the  grim 
old  warrior  he  knew  so  well,  the  result  might  have  been 
a  book  much  in  the  vein  of  Fran9ois's  book.  For  to 
the  valet  the  master  was  above  all  a  dandy  and  an  ac- 
complished man  of  the  world.  It  was  very  fine,  per- 
haps, to  have  written  "Bel-Ami,"  and  "Fort  Comme 
la  Mort,"  and  "Pierre  et  Jean."  But  what  really 
stirred  the  pride  of  Fran9ois,  and  made  him  assume 
airs  over  other  gentlemen's  gentlemen,  was  the  position 
of  Maupassant  as  a  boulevardier,  his  friendships  with 
aristocratic  names,  his  successes  with  women.  Yet 
now  and  then  Fran9ois  condescends  to  throw  light  on 
Maupassant  the  craftsman.  For  example,  the  pub- 
lication of  "Fort  Comme  la  Mort"  in  March,  1889, 
was  a  triumph  for  Maupassant,  but  brought  him  so 
many  visits  from  young  writers  that  he  began  to  com- 
plain.    Fran9ois  quotes  him: 

They  tire  me  to  death.  I  watnt  the  mornings  for  my  work,  and 
really  they  are  becoming  too  numerous.  Henceforth  I  will  receive 
them  only  by  appointment.  Of  course  I  like  to  be  of  use  to  them; 
but  very  often  what  I  tell  them  does  no  good.  Now  that  young 
fellow  who  has  just  left  me;  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  give  him  good 
advice:  he  is  so  dissipated.  He  never  thmks  about  his  work,  and 
yet  imagines  he  will  become  a  novel  writer!  It  is  impossible,  im- 
possible! You  understand,  in  order  to  write  a  novel,  you  must 
think  of  it  constantly,  all  the  characters  must  be  in  their  proper 


174       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

places,  everything  must  be  settled  before  you  begin  writing  the  first 
pages,  otherwise  you  must  begin  every  day  all  over  again.  Then 
there  is  a  muddle  from  which  you  can  never  come  out  successfully. 
It  is  not  the  work  of  one  day,  even  for  a  practised  writer,  let  alone  a 
beginner. 

Francois  himself  had  some  opinions  on  literary 
matters.  An  excursion  into  the  environs  once  led 
master  and  man  in  the  direction  of  Zola's  house  at 
Med  an.  Francois,  in  response  to  a  question,  acknowl- 
edged acquaintance  with  the  "Rougon-Macquart" 
series,  and  added : 

Since  you  really  wish  to  know  what  I  think  of  the  books  I  will  tell 
you.  M.  Zola  exaggerates  terribly  when  talking  about  servants. 
He  puts  all  sorts  of  horrors  in  the  mouths  of  the  maids;  in  "Pot- 
Bouille"  he  makes  them  scream  the  nastiest  expressions  out  of  the 
courtyard  windows.  I  repeat,  sir,  all  this  is  exaggerated.  Twenty- 
five  years  have  I  been  a  servant,  and  I  have  never  heard  speeches 
bordering  in  any  way  on  those  M.  Zola  puts  in  the  mouths  of  his 
characters.  M.  Zola  sought  his  documents  on  the  very  lowest  rung 
of  the  ladder.  I  wonder  where  he  got  them.  It  is  not  fair  to  attack 
defenceless  beings,  who  are  very  often  interesting.  How  many 
times  during  a  day  does  a  poor  maid-servant  trample  on  her  own 
self-respect  so  as  to  keep  her  place  and  remain  an  honest  girl!  And 
that,  so  as  at  the  end  of  the  month,  she  may  pocket  thirty  francs,  out 
of  which  she  buys  what  she  cannot  do  without,  sending  the  rest  to 
her  old  father  and  mother,  who  still  are  obliged  to  support  young 
children,  and  are  often  helpless  on  account  of  their  infirmities. 

Fran9ois  was  with  Maupassant  during  the  last, 
tragic  years.  The  trouble  with  the  novelist's  eyes, 
which  so  often  interfered  with  his  work,  began  as  early 
as  1885.     To  repair  excesses,  and  to  soften  suffering 


PARIS  OF  GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT      175 

he  indulged  in  ether,  cocaine,  morphine,  and  hasheesh. 
The  impending  crash  was  foreshadowed  in  such  tales 
as  "Le  Horla,"  "Lui,"  *Tou,"  and  "Qui  Sait."  The 
story  of  the  actual  breakdown  has  never  been  made 
quite  clear.  Francois  hintingly  attributed  it  to  the 
"lady  of  the  pearl-grey  dress  and  golden  waistband," 
and  to  a  mysterious  telegram  from  an  eastern  land. 
There  was  a  journey  to  the  Ile-Sainte-Marguerite 
during  which  some  weird  and  horrible  thing  happened. 
But  what  it  was  no  one  seems  to  know.  A  week  later, 
at  Cannes,  Maupassant  made  two  attempts  at  suicide. 
Then  he  had  the  delusion  that  war  had  been  declared 
between  France  and  Germany.  He  was  feverishly 
eager  to  go  to  the  front  and  made  Fran9ois  swear  to 
follow  him  to  the  defense  of  the  eastern  frontier. 
"During  our  numerous  journeys,"  recorded  Fran9ois, 
"he  always  gave  me  his  military  certificate  to  take  care 
of,  for  fear  this  should  be  lost  in  the  enormous  quantities 
of  papers  he  possessed." 

Then  again,  and  for  the  last  time,  Paris,  or  rather  the 
outskirts  of  Paris;  the  maison  de  sante  of  Doctor  Blanche 
at  Passy,  where  he  was  to  remain  till  the  end.  They 
are  not  pleasant  to  contemplate,  those  last  days. 
There  were  periods  of  gibbering  and  violence.  He 
imagined  countless  invisible  enemies.  Even  against 
the  faithful  Francois  he  turned,  accusing  him  of  having 
taken  his  place  -  on  the  Figaro^  and  slandered  him 
in  heaven.  "I  beg  you  to  leave  me;  I  refuse  to  see 
you  any  more."  In  a  savage  moment  he  hurled  a  bil- 
liard ball  at  the  head  of  another  inmate.  Again  his 
madness  would  take  the  form  of  belief  in  his  own  Monte- 


176       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Cristo-like  wealth — the  folic  des  grandeurs — when  he 
would  rush  about  calling  to  an  imaginary  broker  to  sell 
the  French  rentes,  en  bloc. 

Now  and  then  there  was  an  hour  of  lucidity,  of  calm- 
ness, of  comparative  peace,  when  he  was  able  to  recog- 
nize friends,  when,  looking  out  of  his  window,  he  would 
see  the  glittering  lights  of  the  city,  and  imagine  the 
Madame  de  Burnes,  the  Madame  de  Marelles,  the  Olivier 
Bertins,  the  George  Duroys,  going  about  their  business 
and  their  pleasure  as  usual.  Perhaps  he  recalled  the 
days  of  his  lusty  strength,  when  he  had  ever  been  so 
ready  to  faire  la  noce.  But  sparkling  as  had  been  the 
wit,  loud  as  had  been  the  laughter,  there  was  always 
the  undertone  of  bitter,  weary  sadness.  Often  his 
heart  had  leaped  to  fugitive  joys,  to  the  delights  of  the 
palate,  to  the  glamour  of  woman's  beauty,  to  the 
spectacle  of  snow-capped  mountain  peaks,  to  the  surge 
and  roar  of  the  sea.  But  ever  in  that  heart  there  was 
a  deep  cavern,  locked  tight  against  the  world,  and  in 
that  cavern  there  was  gloom,  infinite  gloom,  the  gloom 
of  a  man  alone,  always  alone,  and  gnashing  in  the 
darkness. 


XII.    THE    PARIS    OF    SOME    AMERICANS 

Irving  and  Cooper — Poe's  "Mystery  of  Marie  Roget,"  "The 
Purloined  Letter,"  and  "  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue" — A 
Digression — Paris  in  the  Books  of  Archibald  Clavering  Gunter — 
Marion  Crawford  and  W.  D.  Howells — Mark  Twain — Henry 
James — Edith  Wharton — Richard  Harding  Davis — Owen  John- 
son— Robert  W.  Chambers — H.  L.  Wilsons  " Ruggles  of  Red 
Gap" — Booth  Tarkingtons  "The  Guest  of  Quesnay"  "The 
Beautiful  Lady"  and  "His  Own  People" — Fance,  Moffetty 
and  others — Frank  Norris — An  0.  Henry  Paris  Trail. 

WASHINGTON  IRVING  knew  his  Paris  well, 
living  there  about  the  time  that  Victor  Hugo, 
and  Honore  de  Balzac,  and  the  elder  Dumas, 
and  Eugene  Sue  were  producing  fiction  industriously. 
In  Paris  Irving  met  John  Howard  Payne,  who  wrote 
"Home,  Sweet  Home"  and  the  two  worked  together, 
in  the  Rue  Richelieu,  adapting  French  plays  to  English 
representation.  Although  he  did  not  turn  it  to  use 
in  fiction  we  have  occasional  glimpses  of  Paris  in  the 
pages  of  the  Irving;  glimpses  in  that  vein  of  pleasant 
half  fiction  which  seems  to  have  been  his  favourite 
method  of  expression.  Above  all,  he  delighted  in  con- 
trasting English  and  French  as  he  found  them  there, 
in  holding  the  city  at  arm's  length  as  a  background 
against  which  to  study  and  satirize  amiably  British 
foibles  and  temperament.    Who  can  forget  the  choleric 

177 


178 


Key  to  Map  on  Page  iy8 

A  Map  Indicating  the  Invasion  of  France  by  Certain  English  and 
American  Works  of  Fiction;  Key,  Paris  and  Environs.  I.  The 
Newcomes  (Thackeray);  2.  Adventures  of  Philip  (Thackeray); 
3.  Vanity  Fair  (Thackeray);  4.  Paris  Sketch  Book  (Thackeray); 
5.  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  (Dickens);  6.  The  Parisians  (Bulwer); 
7.  Richelieu  (G.  P.  R.  James);  8.  A  Sentimental  Journey  (Sterne); 
9.  The  Wrecker  (Stevenson);  10.  A  Lodging  for  the  Night  (Steven- 
son); II.  New  Arabian  Nights  (Stevenson);  12.  Trilby  (Du 
Maurier);  13.  Peter  Ibbetson  (Du  Maurier);  16.  The  Martian  (Du 
Maurier);  15.  The  Refugees  (Doyle);  16.  17.  Exploits,  and  Ad- 
ventures of  Gerard  (Doyle);  18.  The  Beloved  Vagabond  (Locke); 
19.  Septimus  (Locke);  20.  Simon  the  Jester  (Locke);  21.  The  Old 
Wives'  Tale  (Bennett);  22.  If  I  Were  King  (McCarthy);  23.  A 
Chair  on  the  Boulevard  (Merrick);  24.  While  Paris  Laughed  (Mer- 
rick) ;  25.  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget  (Poe) ;  26.  Murders  in  the  Rue 
Morgue  (Poe);  27.  The  Purloined  Letter  (Poe);  28.  Adventurfes  of 
Francois  (Mitchell);  29.  The  Princess  Aline  (Davis);  30.  In  the 
Name  of  Liberty  (Johnson);  31.  In  the  Quarter  (Chambers);  32. 
The  Red  Republic  (Chambers);  33.  Ruggles  of  Red  Gap  (Wilson); 
34.  The  Honey  Bee  (Merwin);  35.  The  Lone  Wolf  (Vance);  36. 
Zut  (Carryll);  37.  The  Guest  of  Quesnay  (Tarkington);  38.  The 
Beautiful  Lady  (Tarkington);  39.  Madame  de  Treymes  (Wharton); 
40.  The  American  (James);  41.  The  Scarlet  Pimpernel  (Orczy); 
42.  The  Elusive  Pimpernel  (Orczy);  43.  Mr.  Barnes  of  New  York 
(Gunter);  44.  Mr.  Potter  of  Texas  (Gunter);  45.  That  Frenchman 
(Gunter);  46.  The  Wooing  o*t  (Alexander);  47.-  Confessions  of  a 
Young  Man  (Moore);  48.  The  Helmet  of  Navarre  (Runkle);  49. 
The  Drums  of  War  (Stackpoole) ;  50.  At  Odds  with  the  Regent 
(Stevenson). 

178a 


Key  to  Map — Continued 

About  Rural  France.  51.  The  Newcomes  (Thackeray);  52. 
Uncle  Bernac  (Doyle);  53.  The  Village  on  the  Cliff  (Ritchie); 
54.  The  Four  Meetings  (James);  55.  The  Guest  of  Quesnay  (Tark- 
ington);  56.  Moths  (Ouida);  57.  The  Battle  of  the  Strong  (Parker); 
58.  Conrad  in  Quest  of  His  Youth  (Merrick);  59.  Quentin  Durward 
(Scott);  60.  The  Lightning  Conductor  (Williamson);  61.  Anne  of 
Troboul  (Van  Saanen);  62.  Guenn  (Howard);  63.  The  Castle  of 
Twilight  (Potter);  64.  The  Leopard  and  the  Lady  (Bowen);  65. 
Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  (Stevenson);  66.  La  Vendee  (Trollope); 
67.  The  Heart's  Key  (Hewlett);  68.  Aristide  Pujol  (Locke)i 
69.  The  House  of  the  Wolf  (Weyman);  70.  Under  the  Red  Robe 
(Weyman);  71.  Sir  Nigel  (Doyle);  72.  The  White  Company  (Doyle) J 
73.  Cardillac  (Barr);  74.  In  His  Name  (Hale);  75.  Perpetua 
(Baring-Gould);  76.  Captain  Macklin  (Davis);  77.  The  Consul 
('Davis);78.  Daisy  Miller  (James);  79.  The  Arrow  of  Gold  (Conrad); 
80.  The  Garden  of  Allah  (Hichens);  81.  Little  Dorrit  (Dickens); 
82.  The  Destroyer  (Stevenson);  83.  Septimus  (Locke);  84.  Mr. 
Barnes  of  New  York  (Gunter);  85.  The  Brigand  (James);  86.  The 
Golden  Hawk  (Rickert);  87.  There  Were  Ninety  and  Nine  (Davis); 
88.  A  Romance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  (Mallock);  89.  The 
Countess  of  Picpus  (Hewlett);  90.  Yolanda  (Major);  91.  Anne  of 
Geierstaein  (Scott);  92.  Joan  of  Arc  (Twain);  93.  Somewhere  in 
France  (Davis);  A  Monk  of  Fife  (Lang);  94.  The  Cloister  and  the 
Hearth  (Reade);  95.  The  Maids  of  Paradise  (Chambers);  96.  The 
False  Faces  (Vance);  97.  The  Garden  of  Swords  (Pemberton); 
98.  The  Virgin  Fortress  (Pemberton);  99.  The  Dream  of  Peace 
(Gribble);  100.  The  Light  That  Failed  (Kipling). 


178b 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS     179 

Briton  of  his  description,  furious  at  the  noise  made  by 
an  awkward  servant,  yet  instantly  appeased  by  the 
sly  excuse:  "It's  this  confounded  French  lock,  sir." 
Cooper  was  in  Paris  in  approximately  the  same  years 
that  Irving  was,  and,  incidentally,  then  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  his  French  fame,  which  has  endured,  unim- 
paired, to  the  present  time,  possibly  for  the  reason 
that  the  French,  reading  him  in  translation,  have  been 
spared  the  atrocities  of  his  style.  There  is  no  more  a 
Paris  of  Fenimore  Cooper  than  there  is  a  Paris  of 
Washington  Irving. 

Edgar  Allan  Poe,  unless  the  present  Pilgrim  be  griev- 
ously in  error,  never  saw  Lutetia;  never  was  nearer  to 
it  than  in  his  youthful  days  in  the  English  school  at 
Stoke-Newington;  yet  there  is  a  very  definite  Paris 
that  is  the  background  of  "The  Purloined  Letter," 
"The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,"  and  "The  Mystery 
of  Marie  Roget."  Nor  in  this  is  there  anything  aston- 
ishing. In  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  Irving  builded  so  well 
that  his  claim  to  the  region  with  which  the  story  deals 
is  likely  to  last  as  long  as  American  literature  lasts. 
Yet  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  was  written  in  London,  at  a 
time  when  Irving  had  never  been  in  the  Catskill  Moun- 
tains; never  listened  to  the  thunder  there  which  still 
suggests  the  gnome-like  figures  of  the  ancient  Dutch 
navigators  silently  playing  bowls,  and  the  bibulous 
Rip  sinking  to  his  twenty  years*  slumber. 

As  everyone  knows,  "The  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget" 
was  based  on  the  murder,  in  1842,  of  Mary  Cecilia 
Rogers,  the  beautiful  cigar  girl  of  the  John  Anderson 
shop  at  the  comer  of  Broadway  and  Duane  Street. 


i8o       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

New  York,  whose  body  was  found  floating  in  the 
Hudson  River  near  what  was  once  known  as  the  Sybil's 
Cave  at  Weehawken.  It  was  the  cause  celehre  of  the 
time,  and  Poe,  in  common  with  almost  everyone  else 
in  New  York — or  rather  in  the  country  at  large,  for  Poe 
was  not  at  the  time  living  in  New  York — had  a  theory 
as  to  the  method  and  the  perpetrators  of  the  crime. 
So  in  the  story,  under  pretence  of  a  Parisian  grisette, 
employed  in  a  perfumery  shop  in  the  Palais  Royal,  the 
author  followed,  in  minute  detail,  the  essential,  while 
merely  paralleling  the  unessential,  facts  of  the  real 
murder  of  Mary  Rogers.  Thus  Nassau  Street  became 
the  Rue  Pavee  Saint-Andre;  John  Anderson,  Monsieur 
Leblanc;  the  Hudson,  the  Seine;  Weehawken,  the 
Barriere  du  Roule;  and  the  New  York  Brother  JonathaUy 
the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  and  the  Philadelphia 
Saturday  Evening  Post,  "a  weekly  paper,"  respectively, 
UEtoile,  le  Commerciel,  and  Le  Soleil. 

There  is  not,  and  it  may  be  said  with  probable  safety, 
any  such  street  in  Paris  as  the  Rue  Morgue,  the  scene 
of  the  strange  and  terrible  murders  of  Madame  L'Espan- 
aye  and  her  daughter  Camille  L'Espanaye.  But  the 
apartment  was  in  the  Quartier  Saint-Roch,  that  familiar 
section  of  the  city  which  lies  within  the  triangle  of  which 
the  hypotenuse  is  the  Avenue  de  I'Opera,  and  the  other 
two  sides  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  and  the  Rue  de  la  Paix 
continued  through  the  Place  Vendome  and  along  the 
Rue  Castiglione.  Dr.  John  Watson  first  met  Sherlock 
Holmes  in  a  hospital  where  the  latter  was  engaged  in  the 
amiable  pastime  of  beating  corpses  in  order  to  ascertain 
how  far  wounds  might  be  produced  after  death.     The 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS     i8i 

historian  of  the  deeds  of  Monsieur  C.  Auguste  Dupin, 
of  all  the  sources  from  which  Conan  Doyle  drew  his 
investigator  of  criminal  activities  one  of  the  most 
direct,  found  him  in  a  library  in  the  Rue  Montmartre, 
where  the  two  men  had  gone  in  search  of  the  same  rare 
and  remarkable  volume.  As  one  encounter  resulted 
in  Watson  and  Holmes  sharing  the  now  famous  apart- 
ment in  Upper  Baker  Street,  the  other  led  to  a  common 
residence  in  a  time-eaten  and  grotesque  mansion  totter- 
ing to  its  fall  in  a  retired  and  desolate  portion  of  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain. 

And  now  for  a  digression  and  the  introduction  of  a 
name  that  are  perhaps  equally  unpardonable.  The 
Pilgrim  first  saw  Saint- Augustine  between  two  trains. 
In  order  to  make  the  most  of  the  three  hours  at  disposal 
the  services  of  an  Ethiopian  charioteer — ^which  is 
euphemism  for  Florida  coon  hack  driver — ^were  enlisted. 
"New  Carnegie  Library,  sah,"  he  pointed  out  and  then 
went  expectantly  asleep  on  the  box.  Now  Carnegie 
Libraries  are  in  every  way  estimable  Institutions,  but 
hardly  to  be  regarded  as  objects  of  compelling  interest 
in  a  comer  of  the  new  world  that  still  retains  something 
of  the  flavour  of  old  Spain.  Jehu's  nap  did  not  last  long. 
The  Pilgrim  persisted,  stormed,  pleaded.  Was  there 
not  a  Spanish  fort,  a  slave  market,  a  row  of  Spanish 
houses?  Again  a  stop,  preliminary  to  another  essay 
at  slumber.  "New  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Building,  sah.  Just 
finished  last  year."  That  first  hour  was  wasted;  the 
last  two  were  not.  They  were  spent  in  a  wicker  chair 
in  the  court  of  the  Ponce  de  Leon  Hotel  reading  or 
rather  rereading  "A  Florida  Enchantment"  by  one 


I82 


THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 


Archibald  Clavering  Gunter.  It  mattered  not  that  the 
plot  was  absurd;  that  the  style  was  abominable.  The 
spirit  of  Saint-Augustine  was  in  those  pages,  just  as  old 
Edinburgh  is  in  the  pages  of  "The  Heart  of  Midlothian." 
Now  there  is  offered  the  opening  for  some  highly  dis- 
criminating reviewer  to  point  out  that  the  Pilgrim  has 
coupled  the  two  books  and  inferentially  proclaimed 
Gunter  the  peer  of  Sir  Walter. 

There  was  a  time,  when  the  Pilgrim  was  a  very  small 
boy,  when,  crossing  the  Atlantic  on  the  old  Servia  or. 
Umbriay  or  by  the  old  Bretagne,  BourgognSy  or  Nor- 
mandie — the  particular  vessel  is  of  no  importance,  the 
point  is  merely  to  emphasize  the  period — one  saw,  in 
the  vacated  deck  chairs  at  the  lunch  hour,  five  books 
bearing  the  name  of  Archibald  Clavering  Gunter  to 
one  of  all  other  authors  combined.  Those  were  the 
days  of  the  "big  four";  to  wit:  "Mr.  Barnes  of  New 
York,"  "Mr.  Potter  of  Texas,"  "Miss  Nobody  of 
Nowhere,"  and  "That  Frenchman,"  which  rightly 
should  have  been  called  "M.  de  Vernay  of  Paris." 
Everyone  read  those  books  ("Mr.  Barnes  of  New  York" 
sold  into  the  millions);  many  realized  how  bad  they 
were,  and  a  few  realized  how  good  they  were.  Other 
volumes  from  not  the  same  pen,  but  the  pen  of  the 
same  man,  followed  in  profusion,  bound  in  the  bright 
yellow  paper  cover  that  had  become  so  familiar.  But 
of  those  the  less  said  the  better.  But  recalling  the 
"big  four";  who  is  there  inclined  to  challenge  a  kindly 
word  in  memory  of  their  author,  who  reached  such 
heights  of  ephemeral  popularity,  whose  material  success 
was  for  a  brief  period  so  great,  and  who,  ruined  by  a 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS     183 

magazine  for  the  conduct  of  which  he  was  utterly  un- 
suited,  died  in  poverty,  unhonoured  and  unsung? 

A  few  years  ago  an  American  novelist  whose  position 
in  the  world  of  letters  has  long  been  enviable  from  more 
than  one  point  of  view  was  travelling  through  the 
Far  Western  states.  While  passing  a  few  days  in  a 
small  city  of  Wyoming  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
gentleman  who  with  Western  breeziness  was  introduced 
to  him  as  "Mr.  So-and-So,  the  foremost  criminal  lawyer 
of  the  State  of  Wyoming."  Mr.  So-and-So  had  read 
the  novelist's  books  and  was  finely  enthusiastic  in  his 
hospitality.  "You  are  my  guest,"  he  said.  "You 
must  stay  with  me  a  week — a  month — a  year.  Your 
work?  Do  it  here.  I'll  tell  you  plots  from  real  life 
that  beat  Dumas.  I'll  show  you  types  of  which  Charles 
Dickens  never  dreamed.  It  is  the  chance  of  your  life. 
Why,  man,  I  can  give  you  the  material  to  write  as  great 
a  novel  as  *Mr.  Potter  of  Texas."'  That  was  the  way 
that  some  persons  once  felt  about  the  now-despised 
books  of  Archibald  Clavering  Gunter. 

It  was  the  flavour  of  an  American  abroad  that  Euro- 
peans never  quite  understood  that  one  found  in  the 
early  books  of  Gunter  just  as  one  found  him  in  a  some- 
what different  way  in  the  highly  polished  novels  of 
Henry  James.  Thirty  years  ago  ours  was  almost  an- 
other United  States.  The  period  was  one  of  transition. 
In  Europe  all  Americans  were  supposed  to  be  enor- 
mously rich,  and,  to  put  the  matter  politely,  eccentric. 
The  Far  West  in  its  theatric  sense — the  Far  West  of 
Indian  outbreaks,  of  claim  jumping,  and  fortunes  made 
overnight — had  just  ceased  to  be  a  reality.     Europeans 


i84       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

were  almost  as  puzzling  to  us  as  we  were  to  them. 
Visiting  Englishmen  in  New  York  were  supposed  in- 
variably to  patronize  the  Brevoort,  just  as  they  did  in 
the  novels  written  in  the  'seventies.  The  term  "dude" 
had  recently  come  into  derisive  use;  Anglomaniacs 
were  being  jeered  at  violently;  and  people  were  making 
the  most  of  the  lately  coined  phrase  "the  four  hundred." 
Such  apparent  trivialities  as  these  must  be  kept  in 
mind  by  any  one  who  should  happen  now  to  take  up  for 
the  first  time  "Mr.  Barnes  of  New  York,"  or  "Mr. 
Potter  of  Texas." 

There  was  a  Paris  in  those  books,  which,  though 
abounding  in  topographical  errors  and  anachronisms, 
was  none  the  less  a  Paris.  Barnes,  a  seasoned  "globe- 
trotter," was  at  home  there,  equally  in  the  Salon,  or  in 
the  coulisse  of  the  old  Eden  Theatre.  Potter  of  Texas 
made  his  way  there,  and,  the  first  night  of  his  stay, 
almost  precipitated  a  riot  in  one  of  the  cafes-chantants 
of  the  Champs-Elysees,  thinking  himself  cheated  as 
the  prices  of  drinks  increased  every  time  he  changed 
his  seat  on  account  of  a  growing  interest  in  the  houris 
on  the  stage.  Travelling  southward  over  the  rails  of 
the  P.-L.-M.  one  need  take  no  shame  in  recalling  a  sim- 
ilar journey  made  by  Barnes  in  pursuit  of  the  English 
girl  by  whose  charms  he  had  been  so  suddenly  smitten, 
and  the  devices  by  which  the  American  starved  her 
into  accepting  his  acquaintance. 

Above  all,  there  was  the  Paris  that  Gunter  pictured 
in  "That  Frenchman,"  the  Paris  of  the  Second  Empire 
that  i^was  running  its  butterfly  race  toward  Sedan. 
The  first  part  of  that  story  revolved  about  a  plot  to 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS     185 

assassinate  the  Prince  Imperial  as  a  means  of  averting 
the  impending  war  between  France  and  Germany. 
The  thread  of  the  intrigue  leads  along  the  boulevards; 
into  by-streets;  to  the  Palace  of  the  Tuileries;  to  the 
Jardin  d'Acclimation  and  the  beautiful  flower  girl 
with  the  dark  eyes  and  the  yellow  hair;  to  Passy;  to 
the  Mabille;  where  the  comical  little  detective — a  type 
of  character  that  under  some  name  or  other  appeared 
in  all  the  Gunter  books  of  that  period — ^joyously  danced 
the  can-can;  to  a  salle  in  the  Rue  Pelletier  and  the 
splendid  battle  between  the  Masked  Wrestler  of  Paris 
and  the  Man  with  the  Iron  Legs;  and  finally  to  the  bear- 
pit  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  where  the  heir  to  the 
French  throne  was  to  be  done  to  death  by  means  of 
gas  fumes.  It  has  been  said  that  Gunter  made  some 
tremendous  blunders  in  the  description  of  streets  and 
buildings.  Very  likely  he  did.  What  does  it  matter? 
Scott's  "Quentin.Durward"  is  none  the  less  an  enter- 
taining novel  for  the  reason  that  the  good  Bishop  of 
Liege,  so  dramatically  murdered  at  the  banquet  of  the 
Wild  Boar  of  Ardennes,  actually  met  the  most  peaceful 
and  prosaic  of  deaths. 

It  is  singular  that  in  the  books  of  F.  Marion  Crawford, 
of  all  American  story-tellers  perhaps  the  most  thoroughly 
cosmopolitan,  there  was  very  little  of  Paris  or  of  France. 
Of  a  dozen  cities  he  wrote  with  easy  familiarity;  for 
example:  New  York,  in  " Katherine  Lauderdale,"  "The 
Ralstons,"  "The  Three  Fates,"  and  "Marion  Darche"; 
Boston,  in  "An  American  Politician";  Munich,  in  "A 
Cigarette  Maker's  Romance";  Prague,  in  "The  Witch 
of  Prague";   Constantinople,  in  "Paul   PatofF"   and 


i86       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

"Arethusa";  London,  in  "The  Diva's  Ruby";  Madrid, 
in  "In  the  Palace  of  the  King";  Venice,  in  "Marietta"; 
Rome,  in  "Saracenesca,"  "Sant'  Ilario,"  "Pietro 
Ghisleri,"  "Don  Orsino,"  "CeciHa,"  and  many  more. 
But  if  there  is  any  book  of  his  in  which  the  characters 
linger  more  than  a  brief  moment  in  Paris  it  has  entirely 
escaped  the  present  Pilgrim's  memory.  The  case  of 
Marion  Crawford  is  also  the  case  of  WiUiam  Dean 
Howells,  who,  passing  Paris  by,  drew  upon  the  impres- 
sions of  his  years  in  the  American  Consular  Service 
in  Italy  for  "Indian  Summer,"  a  tale  of  Florence,  and 
"A  Foregone  Conclusion,"  of  which  the  scenes  were 
among  the  canals  and  palaces  of  Venice. 

There  is  Paris  in  the  pages  of  Mark  Twain's  "The 
Innocents  Abroad,"  if  that  book  is  to  be  regarded  in 
the  light  of  fiction;  and  Henry  James  has  written  much 
of  Paris,  notably  in  "The  American"  and  "The  Am- 
bassadors," and  there  is  the  Paris  of  Edith  Wharton's 
* 'Madame  deTreymes";  and  the  Paris  of  Basil  King's 
"The  Inner  Shrine";  and  the  Revolutionary  Paris  about 
which  Weir  Mitchell  played  whimsically  in  "The  Ad- 
ventures of  Francois";  and  as  it  is  quite  impossible  in 
this  rambling  pilgrimage  to  keep  always  in  the  same 
key,  there  is  the  city  to  which  Robert  Clay,  In  Richard 
Harding  Davis's  "Soldiers  of  Fortune,"  referred  as 
"your  Paris  and  my  Paris";  and  the  Paris  of  the  same 
author's  "The  Princess  Aline,"  where  Mornay  Carlton 
stayed  at  the  Hotel  Continental  and  spent  the  evening 
in  front  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix,  and  dined  at  Laurent's 
in  the  Champs-Elysees;  and  the  Paris  of  Owen  Johnson's 
"In  the  Name  of  Liberty";  and  the  Paris  which  Robert 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS     187 

W.  Chambers  knew  so  well  In  the  days  when  he  was 
studying  to  be  a  painter,  and  used  as  the  background 
of  his  first  stories,  "The  Red  Republic,"  "Ashes  of 
Empire,"  "The  Maids  of  Paradise,"  "Lorraine,"  and 
the  short  tales  of  "  In  the  Quarter." 

There  was  an  extremely  amusing,  justly  popular, 
though  of  course  utterly  unimportant  novel  of  five  or 
six  years  ago,  which  reflected  accurately,  even  though  It 
was  frankly  designed  In  a  spirit  of  burlesque,  the  atti- 
tude of  many  of  our  fellow-countrymen  travelling  in 
Europe  in  the  days  before  the  war.  That  was  Harry 
Leon  Wilson's  "Ruggles  of  Red  Gap"  a  tale,  which. 
In  its  opening  chapters,  the  best  chapters,  by  the  way, 
was  riotous  of  Paris.  The  Flood  family  In  general,  and 
"Cousin  Egbert"  in  particular,  happened  to  come  from 
the  Far  Western  community  of  Red  Gap,  where  an  old 
family  meant  one  that  had  settled  In  Red  Gap  before 
the  spur  was  built  out  to  the  canning  factory.  "Cousin 
Egbert,"  a  victim  of  feminine  domination,  was  acquiring 
the  rudiments  of  Louvre  art  at  a  certain  comer  cafe, 
under  the  watchful  eye  of  the  mystified  Ruggles,  when 
his  cultural  meditations  were  disturbed  by  the  unex- 
pected, but  not  unwelcome,  intrusion  of  one  "JeflF" 
Tuttle.  For  the  actual  scenes  involved  In  the  en- 
suing "Odyssey"  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  following 
letter  from  Mr.  Wilson: 

That  Paris  debauch  of  Ruggles  ensued  from  my  observations  and 
notes  on  the  habits  of  visiting  Americans  in  Paris.  Particulariy 
Americans  from  west  of  Pittsburgh.  I  laboured  like  a  true  scientist 
in  making  those  observations.  The  meeting  of  Cousin  Egbert  and 
Jeff  Tuttle  was  before  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix,  and  their  comprehending 


1 88       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

cocker  took  them  for  lunfcheon  to  a  " Rendez-vous  des  cockers  fideles" 
near  the  corner  of  the  Boulevard  Montparnasse  and  the  Boulevard 
Raspail.  They  found  their  carrousel  by  proceeding  out  the  Boule- 
vard Raspail  and  past  the  Lion  de  Belfort.  I  myself  forget  jast 
where  it  lay  in  relation  to  that  monument,  but  not  many  blocks  from 
it. 

It  was  in  the  Boulevard  Montparnasse  that  Harry 
Leon  Wilson  lived  at  one  time,  sharing  an  apartment 
there  with  Julian  Street,  whose  "Paris  a  la  Carte" 
is  a  book  in  which  Americans  gastronomically  inclined 
will  find  both  instruction  and  entertainment.  The 
number  was  137.  There  Mr.  Wilson  wrote  "Ewing's 
Lady,"  and  in  collaboration  with  Booth  Tarkington, 
the  plays  "Foreign  Exchange"  and  "Your  Humble 
Servant."  A  more  widely  popular  result  of  the  collabo- 
ration was  "The  Man  from  Home,"  written  in  five 
weeks  in  the  autumn  of  1906  at  a  villa  called  "Colhne 
des  Roses"  at  Champigny,  that  was  temporarily  the 
home  of  Mr.  Tarkington. 

There  is  much  of  Paris  in  Booth  Tarkington's  "The 
Guest  of  Quesnay,"  "The  Beautiful  Lady,"  and  "His 
Own  People."  It  was  the  pathetic  occupation  of  the 
impoverished  Ansolini  of  "The  Beautiful  Lady"  to  sit 
from  ten  in  the  morning  to  midday,  and  from  four  to 
seven  in  the  afternoon,  at  one  of  the  small  tables  under 
the  awning  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix  at  the  comer  of  the 
Place  de  I'Opera,  that  is  to  say  the  centre  of  the  civilized 
world,  exposing  his  head  as  a  living  advertisement  of 
the  least  amusing  ballet  in  Paris.  That  story  was  writ- 
ten in  the  Rue  de  Clichy,  about  a  man  the  author  had 
seen,  and  whose  memory  haunted  him.     The  balloon 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS      189 

ascension  at  the  Porte  Maillot,  which  AnsoUni 
shared  with  his  incorrigible  pupil  Poor  Jr.,  was  also 
drawn  from  a  personal  experience.  For  ten  nights  in 
succession  Mr.  Tarkington  had  made  the  ascent,  dining 
joyously  among  the  clouds.  The  eleventh  night, 
through  the  merest  chance,  the  venture  was  abandoned. 
Late  that  evening  the  author  learned  from  the  news- 
papers that  those  who  had  made  the  ascent  in  place  of 
his  own  party  had  experienced  adventures  not  outlined 
in  the  programme.  The  ropes  which  held  the  balloon 
captive  had  parted,  the  car  had  been  carried  miles  away 
from  Paris,  and  finally  the  gas  bag  had  exploded.  Only 
the  presence  of  mind  and  resourcefulness  of  the  aeronaut 
in  charge  had  saved  all  from  instant  destruction.  A 
man  to  whom  Mr.  Tarkington  had  recommended  the 
delights  of  the  trip  was  waiting  his  turn  to  go  up  and 
witnessed  the  show.  He  visited  the  author  to  thank 
him — pointedly. 

"His  Own  People"  was  written  at  Champigny.  The 
story  of  the  crooks  in  that  tale  was  founded  on  two 
groups  that  Mr.  Tarkington  knew.  From  the  original 
of  the  Hon.  Chanler  Pedlow  the  author  bought  his  first 
motor  car,  which  he  describes  as  "an  idle,  roaring  Fiat." 
"The  Guest  of  Quesnay"  was  written  in  the  Rue  de 
Tournon,  where,  in  an  apartment  at  No.  20,  Mr. 
Tarkington  lived  for  three  years,  and  which  he  recalls 
as  his  favourite  Paris  home.  To  quote  from  a  letter 
on  the  subject: 

It  was  the  top  number  of  that  wonderful  little  street.    No  one 
could  live  long  enough  to  get  all  its  story,  from  the  time  when  the 


I90       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Luxembourg  was  a  Roman  camp,  Moliere  played  where  Foyot's  is 
now.  From  the  Rue  de  Tournon  Daudet  went  out  in  his  overcoat- 
less  dress  suit.  Renan  lived  there.  Balzac  lived  there.  Just 
around  the  corner  were  the  haunts  of  Aramis  and  Company.  The 
old  streets  of  the  Musketeers  are  there  yet,  with  most  of  the  names, 
at  least,  unchanged  since  young  D'Artagnan  found  himself  in  that 
row  over  the  baldric  of  Porthos,  the  handkerchief  of  Aramis,  and  the 
shoulder  of  Athos.  Francois  Villon  was  close  at  hand.  ...  I 
dined  often  at  Foyot's  and  found  there  a  waiter  whom  I  put  into 
"The  Guest  of  Quesnay,"  transferring  him  to  the  "Trois  Pigeons," 
and  calling  him  Amedee.  .  .  .  There  was  the  flavour  of  Victor 
Cherbuliez  in  "The  Guest  of  Quesnay."  "Samuel  Brohl  et  Cie" 
was  then  one  of  my  favourite  novels.  .  .  .  There  was  something 
of  a  semi-Bohemian  Hfe;  Americans,  and  all  nationalities  of  artists. 
Over  the  river,  in  a  place  near  the  Gare  Saint-Lazare,  the  Wednes- 
day Club  lunched.  It  was  made  up  mostly  of  correspondents  of 
American  newspapers.  .  .  .  Ah!  the  Rue  de  Tournon!  I  still 
haunt  that  neighbourhood  in  my  thoughts  of  Paris,  but  the  last  time 
I  saw  it  was  in  191 1,  when  I  went  to  that  corner  and  looked  up  at  the 
stone  balcony  that  used  to  be  mine  and  wondered  who  was  living 
there — one  moonlight  night. 

Foyot's.  Mr.  Tarkington  Is  far  from  being  alone 
among  American  novelists  in  his  liking  for  the  cuisine 
and  atmosphere  of  that  Latin  Quarter  tavern,  where 
real  senators  of  France  from  the  near-by  Palace  of  the 
Luxembourg  may  be  seen  contentedly  breakfasting  over 
napkins  tucked  in  at  the  chin.  It  has  figured  in  pages 
by  Owen  Johnson,  who  is  never  tired  of  singing  its 
praises.  Dining  one  day  at  Foyot's  Louis  Joseph 
Vance  found  the  suggestion  of  "The  Lone  Wolf,"  whose 
adventures  were  later  continued  in  "The  False  Faces." 
Foyot's,  the  "Troyon's"  of  the  story,  has  two  entrances, 
one  on  the  Rue  Vaugirard  and  the  other  on  the  Rue  de 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS     191 

Toumon.  The  Lone  Wolf  was  brought  up  in  the  curi- 
ous atmosphere,  and  the  two  entrances  and  their  possi- 
biUties  are  factors  in  the  working  out  of  the  tale.  Some- 
where not  far  from  Foyot's  was  "The  Street  of  the  Two 
Friends,"  of  F.  Berkeley  Smith's  story  of  that  name, 
which  sang  the  praises  of  the  old  Latin  Quarter,  the  old 
joyous  quarter  where  social  conventions  were  as  little 
regarded  as  the  Commandments  east  of  Suez.  There 
was  Paris  in  Cleveland  Moffett's  "The  Mysterious 
Card"  and  "Through  the  Wall";  and  in  Samuel  Mer- 
win's  "The  Honey  Bee,"  which  pictured  the  city  just 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  the  newly  bom 
French  enthusiasm  for  the  prize  ring;  and  in  the  "Zut" 
of  the  late  Guy  Wetmore  Carryll.  The  last  name  sug- 
gests a  story  illustrating  the  inefFectuality  of  fame. 
The  concierge  of  an  apartment  house  in  which  Mr. 
Carryll  once  went  to  live  was  much  interested  in  learn- 
ing the  American's  metier.  "Monsieur's  name  is  Guy 
and  Monsieur  is  a  writer.  There  was  another  Guy  who 
lived  here  many  years  ago  who  was  also  a  writer.  May- 
be Monsieur  has  heard  of  him.  His  name  was  Guy  de 
Maupassant.  I  don't  know  what  has  become  of  him. 
Perhaps  he  is  dead." 

Then  there  was  the  gifted  author  of  "The  Pit,"  "The 
Octopus,"  and  "The  Wolf,"  who  died  so  young,  so 
rich  in  promise,  and  just  as  he  was  swinging  into  the  full 
stride  of  achievement.  At  seventeen  years  of  age 
Frank  Norris,  intending  to  be  an  artist,  went  to  France, 
and  enrolled  as  a  student  at  the  "Atelier  JuHen"  in 
Paris.  There  he  remained  two  years  and  became  ab- 
sorbed, not  in  art,  but  in  chivalry.     The  reading  of 


192       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Froissart*s  "Chronicles"  was  his  daily  recreation.  He 
became  so  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  mediaevalism  that 
once  with  much  amusement  he  pointed  out  an  error 
in  Scott's  "Ivanhoe"  in  which  one  of  the  characters  is 
described  as  wearing  a  certain  kind  of  armour  that  was 
not  in  use  until  a  hundred  years  later;  a  mistake  that 
was  as  obvious  to  him  as  if  someone  to-day  should 
depict  Louis  XIV  in  a  top  hat  and  frock  coat.  It  was 
in  those  Paris  days  that  Frank  Norris  began  to  write. 
His  earliest  ventures,  his  brother  Charles  G.  Norris 
has  told  us,  were  more  to  provide  a  vehicle  for  his  illus- 
trations than  for  any  interest  he  had  in  writing  itself. 
Thus  it  was  that  his  first  novel,  "Robert  d'Artois,'* 
crude  and  amateurish,  was  written. 

Leaving  Frank  in  Paris  to  continue  his  art  studies 
the  rest  of  the  Norris  family  returned  to  California. 
Correspondence  between  the  brothers  took  the  form 
of  a  novel  written  by  Frank  in  which  all  their  favourite 
characters  appeared  revolving  about  Charles,  who  was 
described  as  the  nephew  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy.  The 
story  was  written  in  the  second  person  on  closely  ruled 
note  paper.  It  came  to  America  in  chapters,  rolled  up 
inside  French  newspapers  to  save  postage.  Every  in- 
stalment was  profusely  illustrated  with  pencil  sketches, 
mostly  of  Charles  as  an  esquire,  a  man-at-arms,  an 
equerry,  and  finally  as  a  knight.  Plots  and  episodes 
from  the  works  of  Scott,  Francis  Bacon,  Frank  Stock- 
ton, and  others  were  lifted  bodily;  sometimes  the  actual 
wording  was  borrowed.  There  was  one  sentence: 
"The  night  closed  down  as  dark  as  a  wolf's  mouth,'* 
that,  years  later,  Charles  found  again  in  the  opening  of  a 


THE  PARIS  OF  SOME  AMERICANS     193 

chapter  of  "Quentin  Durward."  The  story  was  never 
concluded,  but  those  Paris  days  were  reflected  in  the 
dedication  of  "The  Pit": 

In  memory  of  certain  lamentable  tales  of  the  round  (dining-room) 
table  heroes;  of  the  epic  of  the  pewter  platoons,  and  the  romance 
cycle  of  "Gaston  le  Fox"  which  we  invented,  maintained,  and  found 
marvellous  when  we  both  were  boys. 

Even  in  the  pages  of  O.  Henry  may  be  found  the  Paris 
trail.  Even  he,  for  a  moment,  saw  fit  to  forsake  the 
purlieus  of  his  Little  Old  Bagdad-on-the-Subway,  the 
lotos-eating  atmosphere  of  Caribbean-washed  shores, 
mountain  paths  in  the  Cumberland,  and  waving  Western 
prairies,  to  allow  his  fancy  to  play  about  valleys  of  the 
Eure-et-Loir  and  winding  streets  and  gabled  houses 
of  old  Lutetia.  There  was,  once  upon  a  time,  in  what 
we  like  to  refer  to  richly  and  sonorously  as  the  "red- 
heeled  days  of  seigneurial  France,"  a  poet,  David  Mig- 
not  by  name,  who  left  his  father's  flock  in  Vernoy  to 
follow  the  "Roads  of  Destiny."  Of  the  three  forks 
of  the  way  that  he  encountered  at  the  begiiming  of  his 
journey,  all  of  which  led  to  the  same  grim  end  by  the 
pistol  of  Monseigneur,  the  Marquis  de  Beaupertuys, 
only  one,  the  right  branch,  wound  on  to  the  city  by  the 
Seine.  There  David  crossed  a  great  bridge,  and  found 
shelter  high  up  under  the  eaves  of  an  old  house  in  the 
Rue  Conti.  That  street,  and  the  Rue  Esplanade,  where 
the  plotters  planned  to  bring  about  the  King's  death, 
and  the  Rue  Christopher,  where  the  premature. attack 
reached  the  heart  of  the  poor  poet  dressed  in  the  King's 
robes,  have  none  the  less  the  flavour  of  old  Paris  for 


194       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

being  frankly  streets  of  illusion.  And  also  here,  in 
"Roads  of  Destiny,"  we  have  anew  O.  Henry,  an  un- 
familiar O.  Henry,  an  O.  Henry  shorn  for  once  of  riotous 
malapropisms  and  the  extravagant  argot  of  his  native 
land.  "Describe  her,"  commands  the  King,  and  David 
tells  of  the  woman  of  the  Rue  Conti  whose  beauty 
and  guile  have  sent  him  unknowingly  to  his  doom: 
"  She  is  made  of  sunshine  and  deep  shade.  She  is  slender, 
like  the  alders,  and  moves  with  their  grace.  Her  eyes 
change  while  you  gaze  in  them;  now  round,  and  then 
half  shut  as  the  sun  peeps  between  two  clouds.  When 
she  comes,  heaven  is  all  about  her;  when  she  leaves, 
there  is  chaos  and  a  scent  of  hawthorn  blossoms." 


PART  II 
ABOUT  RURAL  FRANCE 


XIII.  THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  SEINE 

Between  Paris  Quais — The  Parisian  Afield — The  Musketeers 
in  the  Environs — The  River  and  Guy  de  Maupassant — Meudon 
and  "  Trilby"— The  Trail  of  "Peter  Ibbetson"—" Samuel  Brohl 
et  Cie." — Versailles — The  Forest  of  Fontainebleau — Daudet's 
"Sapho" — Ville-D'Avray,  Chaville,  and  the  Lake  of  Enghien. 

WHAT  is  the  magic  of  the  Seine?  As,  in  its 
course  from  Charenton  to  Boulogne  it  bisects 
the  city,  it  is  in  itself  neither  an  impressive  nor 
a  beautiful  stream,  yet  the  Parisians  adore  it.  From 
early  spring  till  late  autumn  thousands  of  them  line 
the  stone  wharves  to  fish  stolidly  in  the  muddy  waters. 
Yet  there  is  not  even  a  legend  that  within  the  memory 
of  man  any  one  ever  saw  a  fish  caught  there,  or  heard 
of  one  being  caught.  But  the  thousands  of  Parisians 
are  happy  in  the  innocent  and  ennui-\i\]X\ng  pastime,  so 
it  is  really  their  own  affair.  So  consider  them  with  tol- 
erant eyes  as,  from  the  deck  of  one  of  the  little  bateaux- 
omnibusy  we  watch,  when  not  in  the  shadow  of  the 
bridges,  the  swiftly  changing  scene  of  splendid  quais  and 
stately  spires  and  edifices  equally  rich  in  material 
beauty  and  hi^orical  significance.  A  hundred  char- 
acters of  fiction  line  the  banks  or  people  the  structures 
as  the  quivering  little  boat  dashes  from  landing  pier  to 
landing  pier.  Yonder,  dominating  the  Quai  Malaquais. 
are  windows  which  perhaps  only  yesterday  belonged  to 

197 


198       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

the  delightful  old "  book- worm  of  Anatole's  France's 
"Le  Crime  de  Sylvestre  Bonnard."  There  Sylvestre 
sat  in  his  slippers  and  dressing  gown,  contemplating 
the  blazing  logs,  stroking  his  cat  Hamilcar,  and  listening 
to  the  scoldings  of  his  housekeeper,  Therese.  A 
hundred  yards  to  the  westward  is  the  comer  of  the 
antiquary  shop  where  Raoul  touched  destiny  in  the 
shape  of  the  shagreen  skin  of  the  Balzac  tale.  But 
there  are  too  many  of  these  amiable  ghosts  to  think  of 
considering  them  all.  In  time  the  last  city  bridge  is 
passed  and  the  river  begins  its  eccentric  windings  be- 
tween green  fields. 

The  Parisians  of  fiction  would  not  be  real  Parisians  at 
all  if  there  were  not  moments  when  they  were  seized  with 
the  spirit  of  mild  adventure  that  moves  them  to  venture 
forth  beyond  the  line  of  the  old  fortifications  in  search 
of  pastoral  joys.  There  are  very  few  of  the  novels  deal- 
ing with  the  life  of  Lutetia  that  do  not  occasionally  take 
their  men  and  women  to  Vincennes,  or  Saint-Cloud,  or 
Versailles,  or  Enghien,  or  Bougival.  It  matters  not 
whether  the  tale  be  of  the  seventeenth  or  the  twentieth 
century.  Usually  it  is  along  the  line  of  the  Seine,  but 
not  always.  For  the  purpose  of  illustration  let  us  revert 
to  those  stories  dealing  with  the  careers  of  the  Dumas 
Four:  Athos,Porthos,Aramis,and  D'Artagnan,  to  whom 
reference  is  so  frequent  in  the  course  of  this  volume.  In 
every  direction  from  the  old  city  gates  leads  their  trail. 
Vincennes:  It  was  from  the  castle  there  that  the  Duke 
of  Beaufort  made  his  famous  escape  with  the  assistance 
of  the  silent  Grimaud,  and  by  means  of  the  rope  ladder, 
the  gag,  and  the  poniard  that  were  conveyed  to  him 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  SEINE  199 

under  the  crust  of  a  magnificent  pie.  Noisy:  It  was 
there  that  D'Artagnan  found  Aramis  in  a  monastery, 
an  Abbe  who  wanted  to  become  again  a  Musketeer, 
just  as  in  the  earher  days  with  a  rapier  by  his  side  he 
had  always  yearned  for  the  garb  of  an  ecclesiast.  Saint- 
Germain:  It  was  there  that  the  wily,  devoted,  yet 
unappreciated  Gascon  conveyed  the  young  king,  the 
queen  mother  and  the  cardinal  that  night  in  the  tur- 
bulent days  of  the  Fronde.  Reuil:  It  was  in  the 
Orangery  there  that  D'Artagnan  contrived  his  own 
escape  and  the  escape  of  his  comrades,  and  outwitted 
the  crafty  Mazarin.  Bringing  the  Dumas  trail  down 
to  more  modem  times  we  have  to  go  only  to  Auteuil  to 
seek  the  house  in  which  the  Count  of  Monte-Cristo 
gave  the  wonderful  dinner  at  which  he  invented  the 
story  that  brought  such  terror  to  the  hearts  of  Villefort 
and  Madame  Danglars. 

Every  turn  of  the  winding  Seine  for  twenty  miles 
below  Paris  is  associated  with  the  tales  of  Guy  de  Mau- 
passant, who  loved  the  river  only  a  little  less  than  he 
loved  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Norman 
coast.  As  the  boat  passes  Saint-Cloud  one  may  see  the 
restaurant  gardens  where  Monsieur  Parent  achieved 
the  terrible  revenge  for  which  he  had  been  waiting  for 
twenty  years.  Farther  along  the  river,  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Malmaison — where  Josephine  lived  after 
Napoleon  had  divorced  her — and  Bougival,  are  the 
scenes  of  the  sinister  "La  Femme  de  Paul,"  and  the 
unroariously  whimsical  "Mouche,"  and  a  score  more 
of  the  finely  chiselled  gems  of  the  Norman  master.  To 
turn  to  a  very  different  field  of  fiction:     If  the  reader 


200       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

happens  to  be  interested  in  the  detective  story  in  general 
and  those  of  Gaboriau  in  particular,  he  will  perhaps 
remember  that  close  to  the  river  bank,  at  La  Jonchere, 
which  is  about  half  way  between  Malmaison  and  Bou- 
gival,  and  they  are  not  far  apart,  was  the  cottage  of  the 
widow  Lerouge,  the  scene  of  the  murder  with  which 
*'L'AiFaire  Lerouge'*  begins — a  baffling  problem,  which 
is  eventually  solved  by  the  ingenious  reasoning  of 
Pere  Tirauclair. 

Here,  just  beyond  the  line  of  the  old  fortifications, 
is  Meudon,  associated  with  the  name  of  Rabelais,  who, 
after  his  many  wanderings,  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  was 
appointed  cure  of  Meudon,  a  title  which,  though  enjoyed 
for  so  short  a  time,  was  destined  to  endure  through  the 
centuries.  The  steamboat  station  is  at  Bas-Meudon, 
and  it  was  there,  in  the  Du  Maurier  story,  that  there 
was  a  famous  outing  from  the  Place  Saint-Anatole  des 
Arts,  and  Taffy  proposed  matrimony  to  Trilby,  and  the 
Laird,  in  response  to  the  applause  that  greeted  his 
efforts  in  the  art  of  Terpsichore,  said,  in  French  that 
would  have  astonished  Chateaubriand,  **  Foila  I'espayce 
de  horn  ker  jer  swee." 

But  once  away  from  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  the  Place  Saint-Anatole  des  Arts  the  name  of  Du  Mau- 
rier conjures  up  not  the  figures  of  "Trilby,"  but  rather 
the  men,  women,  and,  above  all,  children,  of  the  early 
chapters  of  "Peter  Ibbetson,"  and  the  early  chapters 
of  "The  Martian."  There  is  in  the  Paris  of  to-day 
a  "Street  of  the  Pump."  To  the  young  eyes  of  Pierre 
Pasquier  de  la  Mariere,  who  later  became  Peter  Ib- 
betson, it  was  a  delightful  street,  leading  to  Paris  at 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  SEINE  201 

one  end,  and  to  the  river  Seine  at  the  other;  or  else, 
turning  to  the  right,  "to  Saint-Cloud  through  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne  of  Louis- Philippe  Premier,  Roi  des  Fran9ais 
— as  different  from  the  Paris  and  Bois  de  Boulogne  of 
to-day  as  a  diligence  from  an  express  train."  On  the 
way  from  Passy  to  Saint-Cloud  there  was  a  pond — "a 
memorable  pond,  called  *La  mare  d'Auteuil,'  the  sole 
aquatic  treasure  that  Louis-Philippe's  Bois  de  Bou- 
logne could  boast,  for  in  those  ingenuous  days  there 
existed  no  artificial  lake  fed  by  an  artificial  stream,  no 
Pre-Catalan,  no  Jardin  d'Acclimation."  In  time,  far 
beyond  the  magic  pond  went  Peter's  excursions,  "to 
Me udon,  Versailles,  Saint-Germain,  and  other  delightful 
places." 

A  Pilgrim  after  the  present  Pilgrim's  own  heart  was 
that  little  boy  of  the  eighteen-forties,  interpreting  the 
world  through  the  medium  of  his  ingenious  combination 
of  two  languages  known  as  Inglefrank  or  Frankingle. 
His  journeys  from  the  house  in  the  "Street  of  the 
Pump "  were  not  all  in  the  direction  of  the  open  fields 
and  along  the  banks  of  the  magic  Seine.  There  were 
days  given  over  to  what  might  be  called  literary  prowl- 
ings — to  the  enjoyment  of  Paris,  "that  Paris,  not  the 
Paris  of  M.  le  Baron  Haussmann,  lighted  by  gas  and 
electricity,  and  flushed  and  drained  by  modem  science, 
but  the  good  old  Paris  of  Balzac  and  Eugene  Sue  and 
*Les  Mysteres' — the  Paris  of  dim  oil  lanterns  suspended 
from  iron  gibbets  (where  aristocrats  had  been  hung)"; 
through  "dark,  silent,  deserted  streets  that  would  turn 
up  afterward  in  many  a  nightmare — with  the  gutter 
in  the  middle  and  towerlets  and  stone  posts  all  along 


202       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

the  sides,  and  high,  fantastic  walls  (where  it  was  dejendu 
d^aficher),  with  bits  of  old  battlement  at  the  top 
.  .  .  and  suggestive  names  printed  in  old  rusty  iron  let- 
ters at  the  street  corners — the  Rue  Vide-Gousset,  the  Rue 
Coupe-Gorge,  the  Rue  de  la  Vieille  Truanderie,  the 
Trepas  de  la  Tour  de  Nesle,  that  appealed  to  the 
imagination  like  a  page  from  Hugo  or  Dumas."  Some- 
how in  reading  the  Du  Maurier  pages  there  comes 
over  the  present  Pilgrim  a  sense  of  futility.  Peter 
Ibbetson  struck  the  note  so  much  better  long,  long 
years  ago. 

Keeping  for  the  moment  to  fiction  written  in  the 
English  language,  there  is  plenty  of  material  in  the 
environs  of  Paris  which  lie  beyond  the  city's  west- 
erly gates.  It  was  somewhere  in  this  direction  that 
little  Rawdon  Crawley  was  put  out  to  nurse,  being 
regarded  as  an  incumbrance  likely  to  interfere  with 
the  social  aspirations  of  his  respected  mother.  In 
tales  of  later  origin  and  more  ephemeral  fibre  we  may 
select  an  auherge  on  the  river  bank  that  was  associated 
with  occasional  outings  of  Mr.  Merrick's  Tricotrin, 
or  accompany  Septimus  and  Emmy  of  Mr.  W.  J. 
Locke's  book  on  little  excursions  that  enriched  their 
lives,  or  with  Poor  Jr.,  of  Mr.  Tarkington's  "The  Beau- 
tiful Lady"  make  heavy  and  indiscreet  wagers  for  the 
benefit  of  the  French  Government  in  the  pesage  at 
Longchamp,  or  follow  the  road  to  Versailles  to  pick  out 
the  exact  spot  where,  as  related  in  "The  Guest  of  Ques- 
nay,"  took  place  the  motor-car  accident  that  so  changed 
the  current  of  the  story. 

The  name  of  Tarkington  suggests  a  novel  that  has  al- 


"Most  of  the  streets  were  very  narrow  and  had  no  sidewalks.  Pedes- 
trians were  obliged  to  take  refuge  from  passing  carriages  on  shop  thiesholds, 
under  entrance  gates,  or  else  beside  posts  erected  here  and  there  for  that 
purpose. " — Victorien  Sardou. 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  SEINE  203 

ways  been  his  particular  admiration,  and  a  writer,  who, 
probably  more  than  any  other,  has  influenced  his  liter- 
ary style.  It  was  reading  Victor  Cherbuliez's  "Samuel 
Brohl  et  Cie.,"  when  he  was  living  in  the  Rue  de  Tour- 
non  that  led  almost  directly  to  the  writing  of  "The 
Guest  of  Quesnay.'*  The  scene  of  the  great  situation 
of  "Samuel  Brohl  et  Cie." — which  for  sheer  surprise  is 
not  surpassed  in  all  fiction — is  at  Cormeilles,  a  village  on 
the  banks  of  the  Seine,  which,  from  its  height  of  five 
or  six  hundred  feet,  commands  a  superb  view  of  the 
valley  and  of  Paris  in  the  distance.  From  the  terrace, 
in  an  air  laden  with  the  scent  of  flowers,  the  Polish 
Count  Abel  Larinski  surveyed  the  landscape.  He  saw 
Saint-Germain,  its  forest,  the  sun-kissed  Seine  spanned 
by  the  two  bridges  of  Maisons-Lafiitte,  to  his  left  the 
bastions  of  Mont-Valerien,  and  in  the  distance,  Paris, 
the  Arch  of  Triumph,  the  gilded  dome  of  the  Invalides, 
and  the  columns  of  smoke  from  the  factories,  that  held 
their  rigid  form,  or  vanished,  swept  away  by  the  wind. 
Then  his  vision  travels  beyond,  to  a  miserable  drinking 
den  within  the  Jewish  pale  of  Poland,  smelling  of  garlic 
and  candle  grease,  where  Samuel  Brohl  passed  his  early 
youth;  and  gradually,  as  the  picture  is  unrolled,  there 
comes  to  the  amazed  reader  the  knowledge  that  the 
aristocrat  Larinski  and  the  wretched  Samuel  Brohl  are 
one  and  the  same  being. 

Then  there  is  Versailles.  Consider  all  the  fiction 
that  has  been  written  about  the  person  and  court  of 
Louis  the  Magnificent  and  the  ladies  for  whom  he  built 
the  Trianons — the  overflowing  company  of  romancers, 
with  the  good  Dumas  at  their  head,  who  have  found 


204       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

backgrounds  in  Versailles  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Bour- 
bon splendour!  Consider,  and  then  turn  to  the  ** Medi- 
tations at  Versailles"  of  Thackeray.  See  the  picture 
of  the  great  king  transporting  himself  there  in  1681, 
from  the  gloomy  palace  of  Saint-Germain,  whence  he 
could  catch  a  gUmpse  of  a  certain  white  spire  of  Saint- 
Denis,  where  his  race  lay  buried,  an  unhappy  memento 
moriy  transporting  himself  with  bag  and  baggage — ^with 
guards,  cooks,  chamberlains,  mistresses,  Jesuits,  gentle- 
men, lackeys,  Fenelons,  Molieres,  Lauzuns,  Bossuets, 
Villars,  Villeroys,  Louvois,  and  Colberts. 

Did  ever  the  sun  shine  upon  such  a  king  before,  in  such  a  palace  ? — 
or,  rather,  did  such  a  king  ever  shine  upon  the  sun?  When  Majesty 
came  out  of  his  chamber,  in  the  midst  of  his  superhuman  splendours, 
viz.,  in  his  cinnamon-coloured  coat,  embroidered  with  diamonds;  his 
pyramid  of  a  wig;  his  red-heeled  shoes,  that  lifted  him  four  inches 
from  the  ground  "that  he  scarcely  seemed  to  touch";  when  he  came 
out,  blazing  upon  the  dukes  and  duchesses  that  waited  his  rising, — 
what  could  the  latter  do,  but  cover  their  eyes,  and  wink,  and  trem- 
ble? And  did  he  not  himself  believe,  as  he  stood  there,  on  his  high 
heels,  under  his  ambrosial  periwig,  that  there  was  something  in  him 
more  than  man — something  above  fate? 

Or,  to  use  the  words  of  Thackeray  in  the  first  of  his 
lectures  on  the  Four  Georges:  "A  grander  monarch,  or 
a  more  miserable  starved  wretch  than  the  peasant  his 
subject,  you  cannot  look  upon." 

With  a  greater  monarch  than  Louis  another  palace 
is  associated.  And  Fontainebleau,  like  Versailles,  is 
rich  with  the  figures  of  fiction.  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son pictured  its  forest  in  "The  Wrecker,"  taking  for 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  SEINE  205 

the  purposes  of  the  tale  persons  whom  he  had  known 
there  in  the  life  during  hi?  own  days  among  the  painters. 
Any  oak  in  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau  will  serve  as 
the  one  under  which  Brigadier  Etienne  Gerard,  in  the 
Conan  Doyle  story,  disposed  of  the  Brothers  of  Ajaccio, 
thereby  removing  the  menace  that  had  been  hanging 
over  the  head  of  Napoleon  since  the  early  Corsican 
years.  But  for  the  full  charm  of  the  forest  turn  to  the 
later  chapters  of  Guy  de  Maupassant's  "Notre  Coeur. " 
There  Andre  de  Marolle  goes  to  escape  from  the  net  in 
which  Madame  de  Bume  holds  him,  to  encounter  a  new 
woman,  and  yet  finally,  almost  at  a  nod,  to  bind  himself 
once  more  with  the  chains  of  the  old  slavery. 

If,  in  his  excursions  into  the  environs  of  Paris  and 
along  the  banks  of  the  Seine  the  Pilgrim  were  limited  to 
one  travelling  companion  his  immediate  choice  would 
be  for  the  books  of  Alphonse  Daudet.  And  among 
them  one  volume  alone  would  suffice  for  a  pilgrimage 
of  many  days.  "Sapho,"  to  the  Pilgrim's  mind  Dau- 
det's  masterpiece,  and  one  of  the  finest  novels  written 
in  any  language,  is  a  story  of  the  fields,  woods,  and 
waters  that  lie  beyond  the  fortifications  as  much  as  it 
is  a  story  of  the  city's  murky  skies  and  rain-splashed 
pavements.  Fanny  Legrand  adored  the  country,  in 
snatches,  except  those  haunts  that  were  frequented  by 
painters.  The  first  summer  of  their  life  en  collage  being 
very  beautiful,  they  visited  all  the  pretty  comers  of 
the  environs  of  Paris  that  she  knew  so  well.  One  night, 
at  Saint-Clair,  in  the  valley  of  the  Chevreuse,  they 
passed  on  the  straw  of  a  barn.  At  Ville-d'Avray, 
lunching  before  the  pool,  they  fell  in  with  the  sculptor 


2o6       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Caoudal,  who  bored  them  with  his  reminiscences,  and 
went  off  in  high  dudgeon,  after  assuming  Pere  Langlois*s 
bill.  It  was  at  Ville-d'Avray,  very  likely  at  the  same 
inn,  that  Barty  Josselin  and  "le  grand  Bonzig,"  of  Du 
Maurier's  "The  Martian,"  found  entertainment  on  a 
memorable  outing  from  Paris.  Near  Ville-d'Avray, 
on  the  Versailles  line,  is  the  little  town  of  Chaville,  so 
intimately  linked  with  the  lives  of  Jean  and 
Fanny . 

There,  after  Fanny's  venture  as  directress  of  the 
Champs-Elysees  pension  of  Rosario  Sanches,  they  in- 
stalled themselves,  in  an  old  hunting  box,  facing  the 
Pave  des  Gardes,  just  across  the  street  from  the  railway 
station.  The  Hettemas  were  their  neighbours,  and 
never  have  the  joys  of  suburban  life  been  painted 
more  feelingly  than  in  the  words  of  the  fiercely 
bearded,  timid   Hettema. 

Ce  n'est  rien  maintenant,  mais  vous  verrez  en  decembre!  On 
rentre  crotte,  mouille,  avec  tous  les  embetements  de  Paris  sur  le  dos; 
on  trouve  bon  feu,  bonne  lampe,  la  soupe  qui  embaume,  et,  sous  la 
table,  une  paire  de  sabots  remplis  de  paille.  Non,  voyez-vous,  quand 
on  s'est  fourre  une  platee  de  choux  et  de  saucisses,  un  quartier  de 
gruyere  tenu  au  frais  sous  le  linge,  quand  on  a  verse  la-dessus  un 
litre  de  ginglard  qui  n'a  pas  passe  par  Bercy,  libre  de  bapteme  et 
d'entree,  ce  que  c'est  bon  de  titer  son  fauteuil  au  coin  du  feu,  d'allu- 
mer  une  pipe,  en  buvant  son  cafe  arrose  d'un  caramel  a  I'eau-de-vie, 
et  de  piquer  un  chien  en  face  Tun  de  1' autre,  pendant  que  le  verglas 
degouline  sur  les  vitres.  Oh!  un  tout  petit  chien,  le  temps  de  laisser 
passer  le  gros  de  la  digestion.  Apres  on  dessine  un  moment,  la 
femme  dessert,  fait  son  petit  train-train — la  couverture,  le  moine — et 
quand  elle  est  couchee,  la  place  chaude,  on  tombe  dans  le  tas,  et  9a 
vous  fait  par  tout  le  corps  une  chaleur  comme  si  Ton  entrait  tout 
entier  dans  la  paille  de  ses  sabots. 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  SEINE  207 

It  is  nothing  now,  but  wait  till  December.  You  come  home 
muddy,  damp,  with  all  the  annoyances  of  Paris  on  your  back;  you 
find  a  good  fire,  a  lighted  lamp,  a  savory  soup,  and  under  the  table 
a  pair  of  wooden  shoes  filled  with  straw.  When  you  have  finished 
a  plate  of  cabbage  and  sausage,  and  a  slice  of  cheese  kept  moist 
under  a  napkin,  and  swallowed  a  bottle  of  wine  that  hasn't  paid 
custom  duty,  it  is  good  to  draw  up  your  arm  chair  to  the  fire,  light  a 
pipe,  drink  your  coffee  laced  with  brandy,  and  take  a  little  nap 
while  the  rain  freezes  on  the  window  panes.  Just  a  little  nap,  to  aid 
digestion.  Then  you  draw  a  bit,  the  wife  clears  the  table,  jumps 
into  bed,  and  when  the  place  is  warm,  you  tumble  in  too  and  you 
feel  comfortable  all  over. 


He  became  almost  eloquent  in  picturing  his  material 
joys,  this  bearded  giant,  usually  so  timid  that  he  could 
hardly  utter  two  words  without  blushing  and  stam- 
mering. The  placid  Hettemas  were  the  neighbours  of 
Fanny  and  Jean  throughout  the  turbulent  years.  They 
came  to  an  end  as  they  were  bound  to,  those  years.  In 
the  quiet  of  the  woods  so  close  to  the  railway  station 
Jean  undertook  to  tell  the  woman  of  his  decision  and 
projected  marriage,  and  the  dark  aisles  rang  and  rang 
again  with  her  implorings  and  reproaches.  Then,  worn 
out  at  last,  she  returned  to  the  hunting-box,  and  fell  on 
the  food  before  her  like  a  shipwrecked  sailor  {se  jeter 
sur  les  plats  glouUonnementy  comme  un  naufrage).  To 
Chaville  Jean  returned  after  the  separation,  driven 
there  by  jealousy;  and  it  was  at  a  table  of  the  little 
station  cafe,  from  which  she  could  see  through  the  trees 
the  house  in  which  they  had  experienced  such  happy 
and  such  cruel  moments,  that  Fanny  wrote  the  letter 
of  farewell  with  which  the  book  ends.     "You  are  free. 


2o8       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

You  will  never  hear  of  me  more.     AdieUy  un  baiseVi 
le  dernier y  dans  le  cou,  nCami.     ,     .     ." 

One  more  "Sapho"  association.  Eight  miles  north 
of  Paris  there  is  Enghien,  with  its  pretty  lake  sur- 
rounded by  villas  with  gardens  that  run  down  to  the 
water's  edge.  One  of  these  villas  belonged  to  Rosario 
Sanchez,  and  it  was  there  that  she  invited  Jean  and 
Fanny  to  meet  certain  ancient  wrecks  of  the  Second 
Empire,  and  later  to  dismiss  them  in  a  moment  of 
furious  temper.  In  a  rowboat  near  the  shore  Gaussin 
and  De  Potter  sat  and  bailed,  and  the  musician,  "the 
pride  of  the  French  school,"  poured  out  in  a  monoto- 
nous, even  tone,  his  life  story,  and  urged  it  as  a  terrible 
warning  to  Jean. 


MONT  SAINT-MICHEL 


XIV.  CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY 

The  Romance  of  Old  Names — Calais  and  Thackeray's  "Des- 
seins" — Boulogne  and  "The  Newcomes^' — Conan  Doyle's 
"Uncle  Bernac" — Fecamp^  Etretat,  and  Guy  de  Maupassant — • 
Havre  "Pierre  et  Jean"  and  Henry  James's  "Four  Meetings" — 
The  Literary  Creed  of  Maupassant — Balzac's  "Modeste  Mig- 
non" — Sands  of  Trouville — Ouida's  "Moths" — Booth  Tark- 
ington's  "  The  Guest  of  Quesnay" — The  Kings  of  Yvetot — Mont 
Saint-Michel — Rouen  and  "Madame  Bovary" — The  Real  Y. — 
The  Style  of  Gustave  Flaubert — "  Bel- A  mi"  and  "Boule-de^ 
Suif" — Leonard  Merrick's  "Conrad  in  Quest  of  His  Youth.'* 

IN  THE  eighty-seven  departments  into  which  the 
French  Republic  was  divided  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  Great  War  there  was  poHtical  and  administra- 
tive expediency.  In  the  old  divisions  of  the  land  which 
have  come  down  from  Feudal  days  there  are  the  magic 
of  names  and  the  romance  of  history  and  fiction.  Till 
the  end  of  time  they  seem  likely  to  persist.    Normandie, 

209 


2IO       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Bretagne,  Poitou,  Gascogne,  Provence,  Anjou,  Ile-de- 
France,  Champagne,  Lorraine,  Beam,  Nivernais,  Bour- 
gogne,  Dauphine,  Languedoc,  Artois,  Picardie,  Franche- 
Comte,  Auvergne,  Limousin,  Touraine,  Maine,  Guy- 
enne,  Bourbonnais,  Berry,  Orleanais!  What  dreams 
of  the  old,  bygone  world  the  very  names  inspire!  The 
roll-call  rings  with  the  history  of  France.  Charles 
Martel  flings  back  the  Saracens  at  Tours;  Majesty 
challenges  the  vassal:  Qui  t' a  fait  duc?y  and  the  vassal 
retorts  Qui  fa  fait  roi?;  the  great  cathedral  of  Chartres 
is  built;  Agincourt  and  Crecy  are  fought;  the  Maid 
comes  out  of  Domremy;  and  Henry  of  Navarre,  the 
"Bearnais" — whom  the  Parisians  still  adore,  possibly,  as 
some  cynic  has  suggested,  because  he  is  dead — bears  his 
oriflamme  at  Ivry.  In  talking  or  writing  of  the  old 
provinces  to-day  there  is  permitted  a  certain  latitude. 
Border  lines  are  not  so  sharply  drawn.  So  for  the 
purpose  of  this  chapter,  where  allusion  is  made  to 
Boulogne  or  Calais,  Normandy  must  be  considered  in 
temporary  successful  invasion  of  Picardy  and  Artois. 

The  Pilgrim,  who  has  passed  by  way  of  Calais  half 
a  dozen  times,  and  stayed  there  twice,  confesses  to 
lamentable  ignorance  of  the  history  and  the  end  of  the 
institution  once  known  as  Desseins.  Yet  for  the  flavour 
of  the  city — the  loss  of  which  so  distressed  Queen  Mary 
of  England  that  she  said  that,  after  her  death,  its  name 
would  be  found  written  on  her  heart — he  knows  of  no 
more  delightful  and  stimulating  reading  than  the 
"Roundabout  Paper"  of  Thackeray  that  is  called 
"Desseins."  It  is  fiction,  as  that  other  Roundabout 
Paper,  "The  Notch  on  the  Axe"  is  fiction;  as  surely  fie- 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  211 

tion  as  "Vanity  Fair,"  or  "  Pendennis,"  or  "  Esmond  "  are 
fiction.  At  Dessein's,  described  as  "that  charming  old 
'Hotel  Dessein',  with  its  court,  its  gardens,  its  lordly- 
kitchen,  its  princely  waiter,  who  has  welcomed  the 
finest  company  in  Europe,"  Mr.  Roundabout  slept  and 
dreamed  dreams.  And,  out  of  the  past,  ghosts  came  to 
his  bedside:  that  of  Laurence  Sterne,  with  his  mawkish 
sentimentality,  and  his  impatience  with  posterity  for 
its  praise  of  Henry  Fielding,  and  with  Mr.  Irving,  "  an 
American  gentleman  of  parts  and  elegance,"  for  having 
written  a  life  of  "an  Irish  fellow  by  the  name  of  Gould- 
smith,  who  used  to  abuse  me";  and  the  ghost  of  Brum- 
mell,  with  his  snufF  box,  and  wig,  and  dirty,  disreputable 
dressing  gown,  and  his  stories  of  Carlton  House,  and  the 
fat  and  ungrateful  Prince,  and  York,  and  Alvanley,  and 
Raikes,  and  Boothby,  and  Dutch  Sam  the  boxer;  and 
the  ghost  of  the  very  old  man  with  the  long  white  beard 
and  the  rope  round  his  neck  who  in  the  life  had  been 
Master  Eustace  of  St.  Peter's,  one  of  the  six  who  gave 
themselves  up  as  ransom  when  King  Edward  of  Eng- 
land besieged  the  city.  The  ten-page  paper  is  one  of 
those  charming  whimsicalities  that  interpret  a  city 
as  it  could  not  be  interpreted  by  a  hundred  ponderous 
volumes. 

Again,  at  Boulogne,  it  is  to  Thackeray  that  one  is 
inclined  to  turn,  and  to  the  pages  of  "The  Newcomes." 
There,  after  financial  disaster  had  descended  upon  the 
kindly  head  of  Colonel  "Tom"  Newcome,  and,  like 
Belisarius,  he  went  into  exile,  he  found  a  refuge  in 
quarters  in  a  quiet,  grass-grown  old  street  of  the  Old 
Town.     Thousands  of  other  unfortunate  Britons  were 


212       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

in  the  same  case:  and  Pendennis,  visiting  the  Colonel, 
strolled  along  by  the  pretty  old  walks  and  bastions, 
under  the  pleasant  trees  that  shadow  them,  and  the 
gray  old  gabled  houses  from  which  you  look  down  upon 
the  gay  new  city,  and  the  busy  port,  with  the  piers 
stretching  into  the  shining  sea,  dotted  with  a  hundred 
white  sails  or  black  smoking  steamers,  and  bounded 
by  the  friendly  lines  of  the  bright  English  shore.  Per- 
haps it  was  the  presence  of  the  unpleasant  Mrs.  Mac- 
kenzie that  sent  Pendennis  to  the  Hotel  des  Bains. 
There  is  to-day  in  Boulogne  a  hotel  of  much  the  same 
name,  but  then  what  French  watering  place  is  without 
its  Hotel  des  Bains?  After  Thackeray  it  is  another 
English  writer  of  fiction  and  another  English  book  that 
Boulogne  suggests.  All  about  the  town  when  Napoleon 
was  gathering  his  legions  there  for  the  projected  d-escent 
upon  England  were  the  scenes  of  Conan  Doyle's  "Uncle 
Bernac,"  and  the  Pilgrim  knows  of  no  book  in  any 
language  that,  within  so  brief  a  space,  gives  a  more 
vivid  picture  of  the  many  sides  of  the  great  Corsican. 
Francois,  the  valet  of  Guy  de  Maupassant,  told  of 
an  English  Lord  with  a  natural  curiosity  as  to  the  actual 
house  of  "La  Maison  Tellier.'*  So  in  company  with 
the  novelist  he  travelled  to  Fecamp,  which  is  the  scene 
of  the  tale,  and  Maupassant  pointed  out  a  structure, 
and  the  Englishman  recognized  it  at  once  by  the  de- 
scription in  the  story.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Maison 
Tellier  was  situated  in  reality  at  Rouen,  but  Maupas- 
sant had  reasons  of  his  own  for  transporting  the  nar- 
rative from  the  inland  city  to  the  seacoast  town.  But 
Fecamp  and  its  region  is  the  Maupassant  country  as 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  213 

Ayrshire  is  the  Burns  country,  the  Doone  Valley  the 
Blackmore  country,  or  the  Blue  Grass  of  Kentucky 
the  James  Lane  Allen  country.  About  here  were  the 
scenes  of  the  pitiless  "Une  Vie."  In  forty  tales  he 
satirized  the  Norman  peasantry  as  Gyp  satirized  them 
in  *'Ces  Bons  Normands."  For  Etretat,  between  its 
two  falaises  the  name  of  Guy  de  Maupassant  stands 
more  than  does  the  name  of  Alphonse  Karr,  who 
founded  it.  There  was  "La  Guillette,"  and  in  the 
garden,  the  house  made  of  an  overturned  boat  in  which 
Francois  lived.  There,  among  others,  "Bel-Ami" 
was  finished,  and  the  greater  part  of  "Pierre  et  Jean" 
written. 

Havre  was,  before  the  war,  of  all  seaports,  the  most 
direct  approach  to  France.  Travellers  from  America 
by  the  boats  of  the  C.  G.  T.  rarely  stayed  there  on 
arrival,  save  in  cases  like  that  of  Caroline  Spencer  of 
Henry  James's  "Four  Meetings" — to  which  allusion 
will  be  made  later — but  they  often  learned  to  know  the 
city  while  waiting  for  the  home-bound  vessel,  playing 
the  "Petits  Chevaux"  at  Frascati's,  and  venturing 
into  the  old  town  to  dine  at  a  table  at  Tortoni's.  To 
the  Pilgrim,  as  to  others  who  know  the  Maupassant 
novel,  Havre  will  ever  be  dominated  by  the  shadow 
of  "Pierre  et  Jean."  The  long  jetty  stretching  into 
the  sea  recalls  the  figures  of  the  brothers  sitting  in  the 
darkness,  the  elder  wracked  by  the  terrible  suspicion 
that  is  beginning  to  bum  in  his  brain.  After  the  return 
from  the  fishing  excursion,  with  which  the  book  opens,  the 
father,  mother,  and  two  sons,  accompanied  by  Madame 
Rosemilly,  passed  up  the  Rue  de  Paris,  stopping  in  the 


214       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Place  de  la  Bourse  in  order  that  old  Roland  might  con- 
template the  ships  in  the  Bassin  du  Commerce.  The 
Rolands  lived  in  the  Rue  Belle-Normande.  The  lights 
of  the  harbour  bring  to  mind  a  memorable  bit  of  descrip- 
tion. 

To  the  right,  above  Sainte-Adresse,  the  two  Hghthouses,'  like  two 
great  twin  Cyclops,  throwing  over  the  sea  their  long  and  powerful 
rays.  .  .  Then,  on  the  two  jetees,  two  other  flames,  children  of 
these  giants,  pointing  out  the  entrance  to  the  harbour,  and  yonder, 
across  the  Seine,  other  lights,  many  others,  fixed  or  flashing,  with 
brilliant  effulgence  and  dark  eclipses,  opening  and  closing  like  eyes — 
the  eyes  of  ports,  yellow,  red,  green — watching  over  the  dark  sea 
covered  with  ships;  living  eyes  of  the  hospitable  shore,  saying  by 
the  opening  and  shutting  of  their  lids:  "Here  I  am.  I  am  Trouville! 
I  am  Honfleur!     I  am  the  river  of  Pont-Audemer! " 

And  then,  on  the  vast  sea,  here  and  there  stars  are  visible.  They 
tremble  in  the  night  mist,  small,  near  or  far,  and  also  white,  green, 
or.  red.  Most  of  them  are  still,  but  some  move.  They  are  the  lights 
of  vessels  at  anchor  waiting  for  the  incoming  tide,  or  of  ships  seeking 
the  roadstead. 

In  the  course  of  this  Pilgrimage  an  occasional  digres- 
sion may  be  permitted.  So  a  word  about  the  preface 
to  "Pierre  et  Jean"  in  which  Maupassant  ex- 
pounded his  literary  creed.  The  public,  he  held,  was 
composed  of  different  groups  who  demanded:  "Console 
me,"  "Amuse  me,"  "Sadden  me,"  "Soften  me,"  "Make 
me  dream,"  "Make  me  laugh,"  "Make  me  shudder," 
"Make  me  think,"  "Make  me  weep."  "The  reader, 
who  in  a  book  seeks  only  to  satisfy  the  natural  tendency 
of  his  mind,  considers  striking  or  well  written  the  work 
or  the  passage  that  pleases  his  imagination,  be  it  ideal- 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  215 

istic,  gay,  jolly,  sad,  dreamy,  or  positive.'*  "Only  a 
few  rare  spirits  ask  of  the  artist  'Make  for  me  some- 
thing beautiful,  in  the  form  that  suits  you  best,  fol- 
lowing your  temperament/" 

"Are  there  any  rules  governing  the  novel,  outside 
of  which  a  written  narrative  should  bear  another  name? 
If  'Don  Quixote'  is  a  novel,  is  'The  Red  and  the  Black' 
also  a  novel?  If  'Monte  Cristo'  is  a  novel,  is  'L'As- 
sommoir'  one?  Can  a  comparison  be  established  be- 
tween the  'Elective  Affinities*  of  Goethe,  and  'The 
Three  Musketeers'  of  Dumas,  Flaubert's  'Madame 
Bovary,'  Feuillet's  'M.  de  Camors,'  Zola's  'Germinal'? 
Which  of  these  works  is  a  novel?  What  are  the  famous 
rules?  From  where  do  they  come?  By  virtue  of  what 
principle,  what  authority,  and  what  reasoning?" 

Balsac's  "Modeste  Mignon"  begins  at  Havre,  with 
the  notary,  Latoumelle,  accompanied  by  his  wife  and 
son,  walking  up  to  Ingouville,  which  is  a  quarter  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  city.  Of  Ingouville  Balzac  said 
that,  in  1 816,  it  was  to  Havre  what  Montmartre  was  to 
Paris.  Since  then,  it  has  become  the  Auteuil,  the  Mont- 
morency, in  a  word,  the  locality  given  over  to  the  subur- 
ban residences  of  the  merchants  of  Havre. 

To  revert  to  the  Havre  of  Henry  James's  "Four 
Meetings."  It  is  the  story,  in  case  the  reader  chances 
not  to  know  it  or  has  forgotten  it,  of  a  little  New  Eng- 
land woman,  Caroline  Spencer,  who  all  her  life  in  the 
village  of  Grimwater  has  aspired  some  day  to  visit 
Europe,  and  to  that  end  has  for  years  pinched  and 
saved.  Crossing  on  the  French  steamer,  every  day 
of  the  voyage  she  sits  in  a  trance  with  her  face  turned 


2i6       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

toward  the  magical  lands  that  she  is  so  soon  to  see. 
Upon  her  arrival  in  Havre  a  cousin  who  has  been  study- 
ing "art"  in  Paris  meets  her  with  a  story  that  appeals 
to  her  sympathies,  so  she  gives  him  all  her  money, 
retaining  only  enough  to  carry  her  home  again.  Her 
whole  stay  in  the  Europe  of  which  she  has  so  ardently 
dreamed  is  one  of  only  a  few  short  hours.  Here  is 
Henry  James's  picture  of  the  Rue  de  Paris,  the  one 
street  of  Havre  with  which  every  American  visitor 
becomes  more  or  less  familiar: 

The  early  autumn  day  was  warm  and  charming,  and  our  stroll 
through  the  bright-coloured,  busy  streets  of  the  old  French  seaport 
was  sufficiently  entertaining.  We  walked  along  the  sunny,  noisy 
quays  and  then  turned  into  a  wide  pleasant  street  which  lay  half  in 
sun  and  half  in  shade — a  French  provincial  street,  that  looked  like 
an  old  water-colour  drawing:  tall,  gray,  steep-roofed,  red-gabled, 
many-storied  houses;  green  shutters  on  windows  and  old  scroll-work 
above  them;  flowerpots  in  balconies  and  white-capped  women  in 
doorways.  We  walked  in  the  shade;  all  this  stretched  away  on  the 
sunny  side  of  the  street  and  made  a  picture. 

There  are  pleasant  journeys  associated  with  the  trail 
to  be  made  from  Havre:  to  Etretat,  twenty  miles  awa}^, 
and  the  Fecamp  of  the  "Maison  Tellier"  beyond;  to 
the  slope  of  Sainte-Adresse,  where  Madame  Rosemilly 
lived;  by  boat  across  the  broad  mouth  of  the  Seine  to 
Honfleur,  where  Henry  V  landed  in  the  Shakespeare 
play;  through  the  canal  that  leads  to  Caen,  where 
Beau  Brummell  died;  or  to  Trouville  and  Deauville 
that  have  naturally  been  reflected  in  four  score  French 
fashionable  novels,  but  which  we  can  see  at  their  best 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  217 

in  the  pages  of  Maupassant.     Here  is  a  bit  from  "  Pierre 
et  Jean": 

From  the  distance  she  seemed  a  long  garden  filled  with  bursting 
flowers.  On  the  great  bank  of  yellow  sand,  from  the  jetty  to  the 
Roches  Noires,  parasols  of  every  colour,  hats  of  every  shape,  dresses 
of  every  shade,  in  groups  before  the  bathing  houses,  in  lines  along  the 
sea,  or  scattered  here  and  there,  resembled,  in  truth,  enormous 
bouquets  in  an  immeasurable  meadow.  The  confused  sounds,  near 
or  far,  of  voices  made  distinct  by  the  thin  air;  the  calls,  the  cries  of 
children  being  bathed;  the  clear  laughter  of  women,  all  formed  a 
sweet  unbroken  clamour,  which  was  blended  with  the  imperceptible 
sea  air,  and  was  inhaled  with  it. 

Then  there  was  Ouida.  One  must  not  entirely  forget 
Ouida  in  Trouville;  for  it  was  the  scene  of  "Moths." 
There  Lady  Dolly  received  her  large-eyed  and  serious 
daughter,  Vera,  and  Vera  fell  in  love  with  the  golden- 
throated  Correze,  but  was  forced  to  marry  the  Russian, 
Prince  Zouroflf.  This  is  how  Ouida  saw  Trouville  in 
the  opening  chapter  of  that  story: 

The  yachts  came  and  went,  the  sands  glittered,  the  music  sounded; 
men  and  women  in  bright  coloured  stripes  took  headers  into  the  tide 
or  pulled  themselves  about  in  little  canoes;  the  snowy  canvas  of  the 
tents  shone  like  huge  white  mushrooms,  and  the  faces  of  all  the 
houses  were  lively  with  green  shutters  and  awnings  brightly  striped 
like  the  bathers.  People,  the  gayest  and  best-born  in  Europe, 
laughed  and  chattered  and  made  love. 

Despite  a  yam  that  was  current  many  years  ago  to 
the  effect  that  Miss  De  la  Ramee — ^who  till  her  dying 
day  professed  to  hold  in  particular  abhorrence  Americans 
and  women — was  actually  of  American  birth,  she  can 
hardly  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  compatriot.     But 


2i8       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

not  far  from  Trouville  there  is  a  distinctly  American 
trail,  that  of  Booth  Tarkington's  "The  Guest  of  Ques- 
nay."  In  a  little  town  back  from  the  sea,  and  within 
easy  distance  of  the  great  watering  places,  was  the 
Hotel  des  Trois  Pigeons,  the  scene  of  the  later  chapters 
of  the  story.  That  novel  was  written  by  Mr.  Tarking- 
ton  when  he  was  living  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon  in  Paris. 
For  the  purposes  of  fiction  he  went  one  day  into  the 
near-by  restaurant  of  Foyot's,  seized  figuratively  a  fa- 
vourite waiter,  and  transported  him  to  the  salle-d- 
manger  of  the  Trois  Pigeons.  There  the  waiter  became 
the  delightful  Amedee  of  the  tale. 

One  of  the  first  stations  on  the  railway  line  running 
from  Havre  to  Paris  is  Yvetot.  Once  with  the  little 
town,  now  numbering  seven  or  eight  thousand  inhabi- 
tants, were  associated  the  ancient  counts  or  soi-disant 
kings.  All  that  was  long,  long  ago,  but  in  the  event 
that  the  train  stops  for  two  minutes  at  the  gare  it  is 
worth  while  recalling  that  Beranger  wrote  a  delightful 
song  (of  which  Thackeray  made  two  admirable  adapta- 
tions) beginning: 

II  y  avait  un  Rol  d'Yvetot 
Peu  connu  dans  Thistoire, 
Se  levant  tard,  se  couchant  tot 
Dormant  fort  bien  sans  gloire. 

There  is  a  plaintive  old  song  of  the  Breton  peasantry 
bewailing  the  capricious,  feminine  changes  of  course  of 
a  certain  river,  for  the  last  winding  twist  on  the  journey 
to  the  sea,  apparently  unimportant  in  itself,  has  far- 
reaching  results.     It  gives  Mont  Saint-Michel  to  Nor- 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  219 

mandy.  Rich  in  history  is  that  towering  rock  in  the  bay, 
surrounded  at  high  tide  by  lashing  waves,  and  at  low 
tide  by  a  muddy  morass,  save  where  a  stone  causeway 
joins  it  to  the  mainland.  The  monks  of  Saint-Michel 
sent  ships  to  help  convey  the  armies  of  Duke  William 
to  Hastings,  and  when  the  yoke  of  the  Normans  on 
England  was  young  two  sons  of  the  Conqueror  waged 
battle  there,  and  Robert  besieged  Henry  or  Henry  be- 
sieged Robert.  Then  Philip-Augustus  burned  it  and 
it  was  the  only  Norman  stronghold  that  withstood 
Henry  the  Fifth.  When  the  Pilgrim  knew  Mont  Saint- 
Michel,  back  in  the  days  when  the  world  was  young, 
history  and  scenery  were  relegated  to  insignificance  by 
the  marvellous  breakfast  of  Madame  Poulard,  a  repast 
justly  renowned  throughout  Europe,  and  carried  in 
memory  home  to  the  States  by  returning  American 
travellers.  For  Mont  Saint-Michel  in  fiction  it  is  again 
to  Guy  de  Maupassant  that  one  turns.  In  splendid 
pages  "Notre  Coeur"  describes  the  rock  and  the  sur- 
rounding country,  the  winding  cobbly  ascent  by  which 
the  dizzy  summit  is  reached;  and  into  a  hotel  room 
there  the  Madame  de  Bume  of  the  story,  the  original 
of  whom  played  so  mysterious  and  sinister  a  part  in 
Maupassant's  own  life,  went  and  blew  out  the  candles. 
If  Havre,  by  virtue  of  **  Pierre  et  Jean,"  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  literary  property  of  Guy  de  Maupassant, 
Rouen  came  even  more  conspicuously  to  belong  to  his 
mentor  in  the  art  of  writing  craftsmanship,  Gustave 
Flaubert  with  "Madame  Bovary."  Rouen  is,  on  its 
historical  side,  essentially  and  first  of  all  the  city  of 
Jeanne  d'Arc,  and  surely  there  is  nothing  in  the  history 


220       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

of  France  more  dramatic  and  more  romantic  than  the 
story,  the  true  story,  of  La  Pucelle.  Yet,  after  all, 
how  much  less  real  is  the  Maid  than  is  Emma  Bovary, 
who  in  one  sense  never  had  an  actual  existence  outside 
of  the  laboriously  chiselled  pages  of  Flaubert.  In 
Rouen  one  is  never  able  to  get  away  from  the  memory 
of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  yet  somehow  the  quaint  streets  and 
crowded  quays  conjure  up  even  more  vividly  the  figure 
of  that  other  woman,  of  whom  it  may  paradoxically 
be  said,  that  she  never  lived,  and  that  she  will  live 
forever. 

The  association  of  Rouen  with  Emma  Bovary  dated 
from  the  night  of  her  arrival  from  Yonville — that  night 
when  she  saw  Lagardy  in  "Lucie  de  Lammermoor" 

and  met  Leon  Dupvis 
after  their  long 
separation.  The 
Bovarys,  after  the  ar- 
rival of  the  diligence, 
had  repaired  to  the 
Hotel  of  the  Red 
Cross  in  the  Place 
Beauvoisin,  a  con- 
ventional, provincial 
inn  with  great  stables  and  tiny  bedrooms — one  of  the 
typical  hostelries  which  added  so  much  to  the  charm  of 
France  in  the  early  half  of  the  last  century.  At  the  time 
that  Flaubert's  novel  was  written  the  Pont  Boieldieu  was 
not  yet  built,  and  the  Pont  Comeille,  the  only  bridge 
that  then  crossed  the  Seine,  was  known  as  the  Pont 
Neuf.    The  morning  after  the  play  Emma  and  Leon  met 


THE  SEINE  AT  ROUEN 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  221 

in  the  cathedral,  which  is  one  of  the  finest  in  Europe, 
with  a  north  tower  dating  from  the  twelfth  century.  It 
was  by  the  Portail  de  la  Calende,  or  southern  portal,  that 
they  left  the  edifice  and  entered  the  cab  for  the  famous 
ride  which  was  responsible  for  the  prosecution  of 
Flaubert  before  the  Tribunal  Correctionnelle  de  Paris. 
Despite  the  many  changes  which  took  place  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  last  century,  the  visitor  in  Rouen  may 
without  great  trouble  follow,  as  the  Pilgrim  has  followed, 
the  streets  indicated  in  that  celebrated  journey. 

According  to  the  story,  Y,  or  Yonville-l'Abbaye,  thus 
named  on  account  of  a  former  Capuchin  Abbey,  was 
a  town  some  eight  leagues  from  Rouen,  between  the 
Abbeville  road  and  the  Beauvais  road,  at  the  bottom 
of  a  valley  watered  by  the  Rieule,  a  little  river  that 
empties  into  the  Andelle.  It  is  one  of  the  very  few 
places  discussed  in  the  course  of  this  book  with  which 
the  Pilgrim  can  claim  no  personal  acquaintance.  So 
he  quotes  from  an  article  written  by  a  M.  Emile  Deshays 
which  appeared  twelve  years  ago  in  Les  Annales  Polit- 
ique et  Litter  aire  of  Paris: 


It  was  at  Ry  (thinly  disguised  as  "Y"),  a  village  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Rouen,  that  Gustave  Flaubert  laid  most  of  the  scenes 
of  his  immortal  "Madame  Bovary,"  and  many  of  the  names  to  be 
found  in  the  pages  of  the  romance  still  have  a  familiar  ring  to  the 
people  of  the  town  and  surrounding  country.  The  present  writer 
had,  one  day,  occasion  to  go  to  Ry,  and  occasion  is  needed  to  make 
the  trip,  for  to  this  day  the  village  remains  without  direct  com- 
munication with  the  outside  world.  From  the  moment  of  arrival 
one  is  impressed  with  the  marvellous  resemblance  to  the  straggling 
community  {la  bourgade)  so^vividly  described  by  Flaubert.    There 


222       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

are:  the  church,  surrounded  by  the  little  cemetery;  the  market, 
"consisting  of  a  tile  roof  supported  by  twenty  posts";  the  Mairie, 
"constructed  on  the  plans  of  an  architect  of  Paris";  the  house  of  the 
chemist  and  the  inn  opposite.  Everything  corresponds  to  the  letter. 
There  is  also  the  street  (the  only  one  in  Ry),  "long  as  a  gun  barrel," 
to  use  Flaubert's  phrase. 

The  present  writer  had  the  good  fortune  of  knowing  the  chemist 
of  the  place,  who  always  maintained  that  Flaubert  described  his 
father;  under  the  name  of  Homais.  Certainly  the  letters  which 
the  son  showed  bore  out  the  contention.  It  was  the  same  style,  the 
same  emphasis.  Continuing  our  pilgrimage,  we  come  to  the  site  of 
the  first  home  of  Charles  Bovary.  The  house  no  longer  exists;  it 
was  torn  down  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  There  remain, 
however,  part  of  the  garden,  and  the  tunnel  and  little  staircase  of 
stone  leading  to  the  brook  crossed  by  Emma  on  her  journeys  to 
la  Huchette.  A  little  farther  along,  on  the  other  side  of  the  street, 
may  be  seen  the  house  later  occupied  by  the  Bovary  family,  and  the 
scene  of  the  heroine's  death.  Unfortunately  successive  restorations 
have  taken  from  the  structure  all  its  character,  and  little  remains 
that  recalls  the  novel. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  the  trip  was  the  visit  to 
Pere  Therain,  the  former  driver  of  the  Rouen  diligence.  In  the 
book  he  appears  as  Hivert,  and  it  may  be  remarked  that  this  name 
is  formed  of  nearly  the  same  letters  as  Therain.  Suppressing  the 
"a,"  we  have  Hinert,  which  Flaubert  changed  to  Hivert  for  the  sake 
of  euphony.  As  to  the  name  of  Bovary,  it  was  suggested  by  the 
name  of  a  French  hotel-keeper  whom  Flaubert  met  in  Cairo,  at  the 
time  of  his  famous  voyage  to  the  East.  The  man's  name  was  really 
Bouveret,  but  Flaubert  altered  it  by  giving  the  ending  Ry,  the  name 
of  the  town  with  which  the  novel  deals. 

Perhaps  in  all  the  fiction  of  the  nineteenth  century 
there  is  no  one  passage  which  has  made  a  greater  stir, 
or  has  been  more  often  quoted  as  a  marvellous  example 
of  style,  than  that  in  "Madame  Bovary"  describing 
how  the  priest  administers  the  extreme  unction  to  the 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY 

dying  Emma.  This  was  one  of  the  passages  on 
special  stress  was  laid  during  the  famous  trial 
served  to  advertise  the  book  from  one 
end  of  Europe  to  the  other.  Seventeen 
years  ago,  a  writer  in  the  Revue  Bleue, 
who  had  access  to  Flaubert's  unpub- 
lished papers,  discussed  the  develop- 
ment of  that  passage.  It 
was  only  after  five  re- 
writings  that  Flaubert 
found  the  permanent  and 
definite  form.  The  first 
draft  read  as  follows: 


223 

which 
which 


The  priest  said  the  Misereatur  and  the  Indulgentiam,  and,  extend- 
ing his  right  hand  pronounced  the  unctions  for  the  redemption  of  her 
sins,  touching  the  different  parts  of  the  body  with  the  end  of  his 
right  thumb,  which  he  dipped  each  time  in  the  oil  which  he  carried 
in  a  silver  vessel.  He  touched  the  eyes,  then  the  eyelids — shutting 
them — then  the  nostrils,  then  the  lips,  then  the  hands. 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  this  first  draft  Flaubert  merely 
outlined  the  general  idea.  He  indicated  the  five  senses, 
but  he  had  not  yet  found  the  figures  of  speech  with 
which  to  illuminate  them.     This  was  the  second  draft: 

The  priest  recited  the  Misereatur  and  the  Indulgentiam,  and  after 
the  words  of  absolution,  dipping  his  right  thumb  in  the  sanctified 
oil,  he  began  the  unctions,  to  efface  from  all  the  members  the  stain 
of  sin.  With  his  index  finger  he  closed  the  eyelids  and  touched 
first  those  eyes  that  .  .  .  the  nostrils  that  had  so  delighted 
delicate  odours.  .  .  .  the  lips  (words  and  gluttonies  .  .  .  ),  the 
fingers  that  had  been  passed  through  the  hair  of  her  lovers  and  that 
had  delighted  in  all  fleshly  contact. 


224       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

This  is  very  little  changed  from  the  first  draft.  But 
it  will  be  seen  that  Flaubert  was  beginning  to  organize 
the  thoughts  that  he  was  to  develop  for  the  nostrils, 
the  eyes,  the  lips,  and  the  fingers.  In  the  third  draft 
he  has  some  figure  of  speech  to  accompany  allusions 
to  each  of  the  five  senses.  Still  this  third  draft,  as  will 
be  seen,  is  very  different  from  the  final  text.  It  is  as 
follows : 

He  pronounced  the  unctions  that  were  to  efface  from  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  body  the  stains  of  sin:  first  on  the  eyes,  her  long  eyes  in 
other  days  so  full  of  flame,  when  they  had  (desired)  coveted  all  the 
pomps  of  the  world;  then  on  the  nostrils,  which  formerly  loved  to 
dilate  to  scent  warm  breezes  and  amorous  odours;  then  on  the  mouth, 
which  had  lisped  tendernesses  (delighting  in  delicate  lies)  that  had 
opened  for  falsehood  and  the  cries  of  luxury;  then  on  the  hands 
with  tapering  fingers,  of  which  the  soft  skin  shivered  at  every  con- 
tact, and  which  would  soon  no  longer  feel  even  the  tickling  of  the 
worms  of  the  tomb. 

The  fourth  version  represents  the  passage  completely 
built  up.  Flaubert  had  been  adding  bit  by  bit  until 
in  this  fourth  draft  he  had  said  everything  that  he 
thought  possible  to  say.  That  much  done,  he  began 
the  work  of  lopping  away  whatever  he  deemed  useless. 
The  fourth  draft  is  as  follows: 

Then  he  recited  the  Misereatur  and  the  Indulgentiam,  and  pro- 
nounced in  a  high  voice  some  words  of  absolutism,  and  dipping  his 
thumb  in  the  sanctified  oil,  he  began  the  unctions;  first  on  the  eyes, 
that  had  so  much  desired  all  the  pomps  of  the  world;  then  on  the 
nostrils,  which  formerly  had  delicately  scented  warm  breezes  and 
amorous  odours;  then  on  the  mouth,  which  had  opened  to  tell  lies, 
which  had  groaned  with  pride  and  cried  out  in  debauchery;  then  on 


CHIMES  OF  NORMANDY  225 

the  hands,  of  which  the  supple  skin  .  .  .  formerly  had  found 
pleasure  in  tender  touching^  and  would  soon  no  longer  feel  the  tickling 
of  the  worms  of  the  tomb;  then  on  the  feet,  which  had  carried  her  to 
her  assignations  and  tramped  the  street  pavement,  and  which  would 
never  walk  again. 

The  italics  above  mark  those  words  or  ideas  which 
Flaubert  thought  best  to  suppress  or  to  change  in  the 
final  version,  which  is  as  follows: 

The  priest  recited  the  Misereatur  and  the  Indulgentiam,  dipped  his 
right  thumb  in  the  oil  and  began  the  unctions;  first  on  the  eyes 
which  had  so  eagerly  coveted  all  the  pomps  of  the  world;  then  on  the 
nostrils,  which  delicately  scented  warm  breezes  and  amorous  odours; 
then  on  the  mouth,  which  had  opened  to  tell  lies,  which  had  groaned 
with  pride,  and  cried  out  in  debauchery;  then  on  the  hands,  which, 
had  delighted  in  tender  touching;  and  lastly  on  the  soles  of  the  feet 
once  so  nimble,  when  they  ran  to  the  satisfaction  of  their  desires, 
and  which  would  never  walk  again. 

Even  in  its  translated  form  one  cannot  fail  to  see  the 
vast  superiority  of  this  last  version.  "Desired"  {envie) 
the  pomps  of  the  world  was  a  weak  word.  "Coveted' 
(convoite)  is  stronger,  more  exact.  Flaubert  sacrificed 
the  "supple  skin,"  and  in  place  of  "found  pleasure" 
{se  plaisaient)  in  tender  touching,  he  used  the  stronger 
word  "delighted"  {se  delectaient) .  He  renounced  in 
the  end  the  ridiculous  idea  of  the  tickling  of  the  worms 
of  the  tomb:  and,  with  a  single  phrase — "so  rapid 
formerly  when  she  ran  to  the  satisfaction  of  her  de- 
sires"—  he  replaced  the  rather  stupid  "which  had 
carried  her  to  her  assignations  and  tramped  the  street 
pavement." 

In  Rouen  ana  the  country  about  Rouen  Maupassant 


226       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

also  has  a  share.  A  few  miles  to  the  west  of  the  city, 
on  the  road  to  Havre,  is  the  village  of  Canteleu,  with 
its  chateau  built  by  Mansart.  It  was  there,  in  "Bel- 
Ami,"  that  Georges  Duroy  took  his  bride,  who  had  been 
Madeleine  Forestier,  to  visit  his  parents,  coarse  old 
peasants  who  kept  a  cabaret.  Humble  as  was  this 
home  of  early  youth,  it  was  turned  to  account  in  the 
subsequent  days  of  Bel-Ami's  prosperity,  when,  at 
Madeleine's  suggestion,  he  pushed  himself  into  society 
under  t;he  name  of  George  Du  Roy  de  Cantel.  The 
story  of  *' Boule-de-Suif "  opens  in  Rouen  with  the 
picture  of  the  stage-coach  and  its  ill-assorted  passengers 
starting  on  the  wintry  journey  during  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War.  The  city  is  also  the  scene  of  several 
of  his  shorter  tales,  conspicuous  among  them  **Le  Lit 
29";  while,  to  come  down  to  more  recent  fiction,  in 
Rouen  happened  a  certain  episode  that  is  not  likely 
to  have  been  forgotten  by  any  one  who  has  read  Leon- 
ard Merrick's  "Conrad  in  Quest  of  His  Youth."  In 
later  years  Conrad  was  to  learn  in  Hfe's  school  the  lesson 
that  "there  is  no  road  back  to  Rouen." 


WALLS   OF   CARCASSONNE 


XV.    A    ROUNDABOUT    CHAPTER 

Carcassonne — The  Land  of  the  Fading  Twilight — "Made- 
moiselle de  Maupin" — "Manon  Lescaut" — With  Balzac  in 
Touraine — The  Home  of  Eugenie  Grandet — The  Country  of 
Scott's  "Quentin  Durward" — About  France  with  the  "Comedie 
Humaine" — Concarneau  and  Blanche  Willis  Howards' s 
"Guenn" — Loii's  " Pecheur  d'Islande" — Belle-Isle-en-Mer  and 
the  Death  of  Porthos — Indret  and  Daudet's  "Jack." 


THERE  is  a  material  Carcassonne  of  which  the 
Pilgrim  retains  the  memory  of  fugitive  glimpses 
caught  in  swift  passage  in  the  spring  of  1917. 
Conventional  guide  books  refer  the  traveller  to  such 
points  of  interest  as  the  Place  Camot,  with  its  fine 

227 


228       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

plane  trees  and  its  eighteenth-century  fountain,  to  the 
Square  Gambetta  and  its  sculptures,  and  convey  useful 
information  about  hotel  rates  and  cab  fares.  But  in 
the  pleasanter  world  of  the  imagination  the  Carcassone 
of  actual  fact  and  municipal  regulations  which  ten 
years  ago  was  the  centre  of  disturbance  among  French 
wine-growers,  is  the  make-believe  Carcassonne.  The 
real  city  is  the  one  of  the  peasant  of  Gustave  Nadaud's 
poem,  to  whom  Carcassonne  was  always  in  the  distance, 
always  in  the  beyond,  always  in  the  Land  of  the  Fading 
Twilight. 

I'm  growing  old,  I've  sixty  years, 

I've  laboured  all  my  life  in  vain; 
In  all  that  time  of  hopes  and  fears 

I've  failed  my  dearest  wish  to  gain; 
I  see  full  well  that  here  below 

Bliss  unalloyed  there  is  for  none. 
My  prayer  will  ne'er  fulfilment  know; 

I  never  have  seen  Carcassonne, 

I  never  have  seen  Carcassonne. 

You  see  the  city  from  the  hill — 
It  lies  beyond  the  mountains  blue, 

And  yet  to  reach  it  one  must  still 
Five  long  and  weary  leagues  pursue, 

And  to  return,  as  many  more! 

Ah!  had  the  vintage  plenteous  grown, 

The  grape  withheld  its  yellow  store, — 
I  shall  not  look  on  Carcassonne, 
I  shall  not  look  on  Carcassonne. 

There  are  other  towns  in  France  than  Carcassonne 
that  belong  to  the  Land  of  the  Fading  Twilight,  as 
there  are  rivers,  and  mystic  pools,  and  valleys  and 


A  ROUNDABOUT  CHAPTER 


229 


forests.  To  that  Shadow  Land  belong  the  scenes  of 
Gautier's  "Mademoiselle  de  Maupin"  and  the  "Paul 
et  Virginie"  of  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  and  the 
"ManonLescaut"of  the  Abbe  Prevost.  It  matters  little 
that  there  was  a  very  definite  setting  for  the  last-named 
story,  and  that,  until 
a  dozen  years  ago, 
there  still  stood  near 
the  Pont  Neuf  of 
Paris  some  of  the  old 
walls  of  the  Auberge 
du  Cheval-Blanc, 
where  Manon  im- 
patiently pushed  open 
the  door  of  the  coach 
and  sprang  to  the 
cobble-stoned  court. 
In  a  book  of  that 
kind  it  is  the  vague 
uncertainty  that 
fascinates;  the  proper 
home  for  Manon  is 
an  edifice  that  never 
had  tangible  existence  just  as  for  Mrs.  Rawdon  Craw- 
ley, nee  Rebecca  Sharp,  we  demand  a  very  definite 
structure  in  Curzon  Street,  Park  Lane,  London,  and  for 
the  Maison  Vauquer  of  **Pere  Goriot,"  the  actual 
building  to  be  found  at  No.  24  Rue  Toumefort, 
Paris. 

Ah,  that  Land  of  the  Fading  Twilight!  that  border- 
land of  night  and  day,  of  reality  and  myth!    The  scenes 


THE   OLD   CHEVAL-BLANC 


230       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

of  "As  You  Like  It,"  and  the  "Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,"  belong  there,  and  of  "Mademoiselle  de  Mau- 
pin,"  and,  best  of  all,  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress."  The 
attempt  has  been  made  to  identify  certain  descriptions 
of  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress"  with  villages  of  Bedford- 
shire. They  tell  us  that  the  book  is  a  wonderful  alle- 
gory; that  Giant  Pope  is  a  prodigious  dig  at  Rome; 
that  the  volume  should  be  read  in  a  studious,  thoughtful, 
reverent  frame  of  mind.  Perhaps  it  should.  But  most 
of  us  will  confess  to  liking  it  best  as  a  romance,  and  to 
thinking  of  the  son  of  the  Bedford  tinker  as  one  of  the 
great  amusers.  There  are  any  number  of  apparently 
inextricable  situations;  plenty  of  stout  blows;  the 
narrative  has  all  the  contrivances  of  stirring  fiction. 
Greatheart  is  every  bit  as  delightful  as  the  Count  of 
Monte  Cristo  and  possesses  the  same  omniscience  and 
omnipotence.  In  finding,  in  this  Land  of  the  Fading 
Twilight,  men  and  motives;  in  making  it  the  scene  of 
action  and  passion;  the  romantic  quaHty,  while  a  factor, 
is  not  enough.  In  the  tales  of  Dumas  or  of  Scott,  for 
example,  the  scene  of  action  is  a  sphere  distinctly  our 
own.  Brian  de  Bois  Guilbert,  Ivanhoe,  Quentin  Dur- 
ward,  Le  Balafre,  no  matter  who  the  character  or  what 
the  historical  period,  people  the  world  of  men  and  things 
tangible;  D'Artagnan  struts  the  streets  of  old  Paris, 
his  rapier  half  out  of  its  scabbard;  his  dexterity,  his 
unflagging  spirits,  his  dash,  amaze  and  delight;  but  he 
is  above  all  a  human  being,  and  the  environment  in 
which  he  moves  to  the  full  as  material  as  our  own. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  "Manon  Lescaut,"  or  "Ma- 
demoiselle de  Maupin,"  or  the  Carcassonne  which  the 


A  ROUNDABOUT  CHAPTER  231 

old  peasant  knew,  or  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress,'*  the 
landscape  is  a  mirage.  The  reader  feels  the  unsub- 
stantiality  of  the  hills,  valleys,  and  cities  described,  and 
admiring  the  beauty  of  an  ivy-covered  turret  or  wall, 
knows  them  to  be  illusory  vapours  that  would  yield  at 
the  touch.  Of  such  substance  are  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death;  Doubting  Castle,  where  Giant  De- 
spair's head  was  hewn  from  his  shoulders;  the  Vale  of 
HumiHation,  where  Christian  played  the  man — who 
cares  what  the  names  may  mean  or  what  the  purport 
of  the  moral  lesson?  Of  all  the  comers  of  that  land 
of  the  Fading  Twilight,  as  ^  we  roam  through  it  in 
fancy,  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  of  the  Bunyan 
tale  is  the  strangest  and  weirdest.  Sunlight  does  not 
penetrate  there.  Beyond  the  gloomy  entrance  of  the 
Valley  everlasting  hills  roll  away  until  the  last  summits 
are  lost  in  mist.  The  air  is  heavy  with  a  brooding  si- 
lence. It  is  the  land  of  Poe's  "Ulalume,"  of  ashen 
skies,  "the  misty  mid-region  of  Weir,"  "the  ghoul- 
haunted  woodland  of  Weir."  There  are  waters — dead 
waters — the  dim,  dark  tarn  of  Auber.  But  that  is  only 
a  comer  of  the  region  of  dreams.  In  the  Land  of  the 
FadingTwilight  there  are  brightness  and  beauty.  White 
chateaux  are  seen  through  spacious  avenues  of  trees. 
The  air  is  ever  fragrant  with  the  sweetness  of  an  early 
morning  in  June.  Strangely  green  and  dew-kissed 
are  herbage  and  foliage.  Such  is  the  country  to  which 
belong  "Mademoiselle  de  Maupin"  and  "Manon  Les- 
caut."  So  no  more  of  the  Land  of  the  Fading 
TwiHght. 

This  is  a  roundabout  chapter,  designed  to  invade 


232       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Touraine,  Brittany,  and  adjacent  provinces.  In  the 
ancient  city  of  Tours  the  great  Balzac  was  born,  and  to 
the  city  and  the  country  surrounding  he  returned  often 
in  person,  and  oftener  in  the  pages  of  the  "Comedie 
Humaine."  Touraine  was  the  background  of  many  of 
the  sly  tales  that  go  to  make  up  "Les  Contes  Drola- 
tiques,"  of  **Le  Cure  de  Tours,"  of  "La  Lys  dans  la 
Vallee,"  of  "Gaudissart,"  of  "La  Grande  Breteche,"  a 
story  curiously  paralleled  in  Poe's  "The  Cask  of  Amon- 
tillado" and  in  Conan  Doyle's  "The  New  Catacomb"; 
and,  above  all,  of  "Eugenie  Grandet."  With  the  pop- 
ular estimate  of  "Eugenie  Grandet,"  which  appeared 
in  1833,  the  same  year  as  "Le  Medecin  de  Campagne," 
Balzac  was  only  half  in  sympathy.  Astonished  by  the 
storm  of  enthusiasm  raised  by  the  book  and  always 
grumbling  at  the  lack  of  response  to  most  of  his  works, 
he  protested  jealously:  "Those  who  call  me  the  father 
of  *  Eugenie  Grandet'  wish  to  belittle  me.  It  is  a 
masterpiece,  I  know,  but  it  is  a  little  masterpiece;  they 
are  very  careful  not  to  mention  the  great  ones." 

Associated  with  the  memory  of  Eugenie  Grandet,  at 
Avoine  Beaumont,  near  Tours,  is  the  Chateau  de  Velors. 
The  chateau  was  at  one  time  a  hunting  lodge  of  Charles 
VII.  It  passed  eventually  by  fraud  into  the  possession 
of  Pere  Nivelau  so  that  it  became  the  home  of  his  daugh- 
ter Eugenie,  Balzac  lived  in  Tours  at  that  time  and  is 
said  to  have  fallen  in  love  with  the  daughter  but  to  have 
been  refused  by  old  Nivelau  on  account  of  his  poverty. 
The  story,  according  to  a  later  owner,  the  Marquise  de 
Podestad,  followed  the  facts  very  closely,  excepting  that 
Eugenie's  marriage  was  more  actively  unhappy  than 


A  ROUNDABOUT  CHAPTER 


233 


the  novel  represented  it,  and  lasted  long  years  instead 
of  a  few  months.  There  were  also  several  children, 
whereas  in  the  story  there  were  none,  but  the  real  Eu- 
genie outlived  them  all,  and  died  in  the  early  'nineties 
of  the  last  century.  The  Marquise  de  Podestad  had 
many  of  Eugenie's  belongings,  including  the  crucifix 
at  which  old  Grander 
clutched  when  he  was 
dying,  because  it  was 
gilded.  In  later  years 
the  chateau  has  been 
surrounded  by  a  moat 
filled  with  water  of 
which  there  was  no 
mention  in  the  tale. 
Balzac  wrote:  "That 
cold,  sunless,  dreary 
house,  always  over- 
shadowed by  the  dark 
ramparts,  is  like  her 
own  life." 

The  illustrious 
Gaudissart,    sublimation 
Balzac   knew  the  type. 


EUGENXE   GRANDET  S   HOME 


of  the  commis-voyageur  as 
stopped,  when  in  Tours,  at 
the  Faisauy  and  when  in  the  smaller  town  of  Vouvray, 
seven  miles  away  on  the  Loire,  at  the  Soleil  d'Or.  All 
traces  of  those  old  inns  have  probably  vanished. 
The  scene  of  the  story  "La  Grande  Breteche"  was 
described  as  an  old,  high-roofed,  isolated  brown 
house  that  stood  on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  about  a 
hundred  paces  from  Vendome.     In  the  very  shadow 


234       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

of  the  Cathedral  of  Saint-Gatiens  in  Tours,  an  edifice  of 
which  the  beginnings  date  from  the  twelfth  century, 
began  "Le  Cure  de  Tours."  The  Abbe  Birotteau  was 
overtaken  by  a  shower  as  he  was  returning  from  the 
house  where  he  had  passed  the  evening,  and  therefore 
walked  as  fast  as  his  corpulence  would  permit  across 
the  little  square.  Directly  north  of  the  cathedral 
lived  Birotteau,  and  a  visitor,  contemplating  a  search 
for  the  exact  structure,  may  find  suggestion  in  a  passage 
which  shows  Balzac's  care  in  the  setting  of  the  scene  no 
matter  whether  the  story  was  laid  in  Paris  or  in  a  pro- 
vincial town. 

Situated  on  the  northern  side  of  Saint-Gatiens,  the  house  in  ques- 
tion is  always  in  the  shadow  of  that  noble  cathedral,  upon  which 
time  has  thrown  its  cloak  of  black,  imprinted  its  seams,  and  sown 
its  chill  dampness,  its  moss,  and  its  tall  dark  grass.  And  so  the 
house  is  always  wrapped  in  profound  silence,  interrupted  only  by 
the  clanging  of  the  bells,  by  the  music  of  the  services  that  is  audible 
through  the  walls  of  the  church,  or  by  the  cawings  of  the  jackdaws 
whose  nests  are  in  the  high  towers.  The  spot  is  a  desert  of  stone,  a 
solitude  full  of  character,  which  can  be  inhabited  only  by  beings  in 
whom  intelligence  is  utterly  lacking,  or  who  are  blessed  with  pro- 
digious strength  of  mind. 

The  neighbourhood  of  Tours  is  the  Balzac  country, 
and  it  is  also  the  Scott  country  by  virtue  of  "Quentin 
Durward,"  for  less  than  two  miles  from  the  city  are 
the  remains  of  the  Chateau  Plessis-les-Tours.  On  a 
near-by  river  bank,  one  summer  morning  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  young  traveller  from  the  Highland  moors, 
later  to  be  enrolled  as  an  archer  in  the  Scottish  Guard, 


A  ROUNDABOUT  CHAPTER  235 

fell  in  with  the  disagreeable  old  merchant  whom  he 
afterward  found  to  be  King  Louis  the  Eleventh  of 
France.  Scott  himself  has  told  the  story  of  how  the 
land  seized  upon  him  as  an  historical  background  that 
demanded  expression  by  his  pen,  and  of  his  French  host 
of  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  who,  quite  ignorant  of  the 
identity  of  his  distinguished  guest,  spoke  of  a  certain 
personage  as  reminding  him  at  times  **of  a  character 
in  the  'Bridle  of  Lammermoor,*  which  you  must  have 
read,  as  it  is  the  work  of  one  of  your  gens  de  lettres,  quon 
appelUy  je  crois,  le  Chevalier  Scott."'*  Leaving  the 
Chateau  Plessis-les-Tours  to  conduct  the  ladies  en- 
trusted to  his  care  by  the  king,  Quentin  was  quickly 
overtaken  by  the  helmeted  knights,  and  in  the  ensuing 
combat  overthrew  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  and  gallantly 
exchanged  blows  with  the  mighty  Dunois.  To  quote 
Du  Manner's  "Peter  Ibbetson,'*  it  was  **a  land  were 
Quentin  Durward,  happy  squire  of  dames,  rode  mid- 
nightly  by  their  side  through  the  gibbet  and  gipsy- 
haunted  forests  of  Touraine." 

Some  thirty  miles  from  Tours  is  Loches,  with  its 
famous  castle,  surrounded  by  a  wall  and  moat,  most  of 
which  still  remains.  The  thoughts  of  Quentin  Dur- 
ward, riding  on  after  the  encounter,  were  of  the  castle 
to  which  his  pursuers  had  been  condemned,  the  place 
of  terror  with  dungeons  under  dungeons,  some  of  them 
unknown  even  to  the  keepers  themselves;  living  graves, 

*Sir  Walter's  host's  delighted  belief  in  the  "Bridle  of  Lammermoor"  as 
being  the  correct  equivalent  suggests  such  a  similar  gem  of  translation  as 
"The  Missing  String"  for  "The  Lost  Chord,"  and  among  English  char- 
acters of  French  fiction  the  Lord  Boulgrog  of  Paul  de  Ko(;k  and  the  Tom 
Jim-Jack  of  Victor  Hugo. 


236       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

to  which  men  were  consigned,  with  little  hope  of  further 
employment  during  the  rest  of  life,  than  to  breathe 
impure  air  and  to  feed  on  bread  and  water;  of  the  dread- 
ful places  of  confinement  called  cages,  in  which  the 
wretched  prisoner  could  neither  stand  upright  nor 
stretch  himself  at  length.  These  cages,  which  Louis 
amused  himself  by  inventing,  and  the  manufacture  of 
which  he  watched  with  grim  pleasure  in  the  three  forges 
he  established  in  the  castle,  were  sometimes  made  of 
iron,  and  sometimes  of  wood  covered  with  sheets  of  iron 
both  inside  and  out,  seven  to  eight  feet  long  and  about 
the  same  in  height  as  a  rule,  though  some  were  much 
smaller.  Historians  have  found  references  to  at  least 
nine  distinct  cages  de  jer,  but  probably  a  very  much 
larger  number  existed  at  one  time.  About  the  time 
that  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  planning  on  the  scene  the 
writing  of  "Quentin  Durward"  he  was  probably  en- 
countering at  every  turn  compatriots  of  both  sexes, 
for  according  to  Balzac,  the  English  about  that  time 
began  to  appreciate  Touraine,  and  descended  upon  the 
province  **like  a  cloud  of  grasshoppers."  In  the  gen- 
eral tribute  to  the  charm  of  this  section  of  France  there 
was  one  discordant  note;  that  of  Stendhal,  who,  in  his 
"Memoires  d'un  Touriste,"  recorded:  "/^  helle  Tour- 
aine yCexiste  pas!* 

To  almost  every  corner  of  his  country  Balzac  went 
for  the  scenes  of  his  studies  of  provincial  life.  Mention 
has  been  made  of  the  books  dealing  with  Touraine, 
using  the  name  in  its  elastic  and  indefinite  sense.  The 
region  about  Grenoble  in  southeastern  France  is  de- 
scribed in  "Le  Medecin  de  Campagne."  To  the  city  of 


237 


238  .     THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Angouleme  belongs  the  first  part  of  "Illusions  Perdues." 
Bordeaux  appears  in  *'Le  Contrat  de  Manage,"  and 
Limoges  in  *'Le  Cure  de  Village."  Lower  Normandy 
is  in  *'La  Femme  Abandonnee,"  "Las  Rivalites," 
and  "L'Enfant  Maudit";  northeastern  France  in 
"Pierrette,"  "Ursule  Mirouet,"  "Les  Paysans,"  and 
"Une  Tenebreuse  Affaire."  To  Brittany  we  turn  for 
the  associations  of  "Les  Chouans,"  which  in  the  form 
in  which  it  originally  appeared  bore  the  title  "Le  Der- 
nier Chouan  ou  La  Bretagne  en  1800,"  and  to  "Bea- 
trix," which  is  interesting  not  only  for  itself  but  also 
for  its  leading  character.  Mademoiselle  des  Touches, 
easily  to  be  recognized  as  George  Sand. 

Now  and  again  in  Brittany  the  literary  Pilgrim  strikes 
the  American  trail.  Thirty-five  years  ago  Blanche 
Willis  Howard  wrote  "Guenn;  a  Wave  on  the  Breton 
Coast,"  which  became  one  of  the  most  popular  books 
of  the  day.  "Plouvenec,"  the  ancient  town  of  the  tale, 
with  its  one  Irregular  street  of  crowded  houses,  con- 
nected with  the  modern  village  only  by  a  drawbridge, 
its  fortress,  that  had  known  more  than  five  centuries 
of  history,  and  had  been  besieged,  occupied,  and  en- 
riched in  memories  by  such  doughty  warriors  as  Du 
Guesclin  and  De  Rohan,  has  been  generally  recognized 
as  the  Concarneau  of  fact,  although  the  present  Pil- 
grim, recalling  Concarneau  as  he  saw  it  some  years  after 
the  story  was  written,  and  comparing  the  memory  with 
the  text,  fancies  many  discrepancies.  Yet  probability 
favours  the  general  belief,  for  Concarneau  has  long 
been  a  resort  particularly  frequented  by  American 
artists.    As  in  the  tale,  the  ancient  quarter  of  the  town, 


A  ROUNDABOUT  CHAPTER  239 

the  Fine-Close^  lies  upon  an  island  surrounded  by  ram- 
parts. "Nevin/'  where  Guenn  danced  at  the  Breton 
Pardon,  is  very  likely  to  be  Pont-Aven,  that  lies  a  few 
miles  to  the  east,  and  Les  Glenan  may  be  identified 
with  the  Lannions.  Another  novel  of  the  Breton  coast 
of  American  origin  is  Marie  Louise  Van  Saanen's 
**Anne  of  Treboul,"  Treboul  being  a  town  of  actual 
existence. 

For  a  vivid  picture  of  the  rugged  Breton  landscape 
one  may  turn  to  Guy  de  Maupassant's  "Un  Fils";  and 
there  is  Paimpol,  reached  by  a  little  spur  line  from 
Guimgamp,  which  is  to  the  French  boats  engaged  in 
the  cod-fishery  off  Newfoundland  and  Iceland  what 
Gloucester  is  to  the  American  boats,  and  where  the 
annual  departure  in  February  of  the  "pecheurs  d'ls- 
lande"  is  the  occasion  of  a  famous  festival.  Pierre 
Loti  has  charmingly  described  Paimpol  and  its  life  in 
"Pecheur  d'Islande."  There  are  Breton  scenes  in 
Victor  Hugo's  "Quatre-Vingt-Treize,"  and  if  one  makes 
the  sea  trip  to  the  Channel  Islands  no  association  of 
fiction  is  likely  to  be  more  intimate  than  that  of  the 
battle  between  man  and  devil  fish  described  in  "Les 
Travailleurs  de  la  Mer."  If  the  traveller  happens  to 
pass  through  Vannes  he  will  recall,  when  confronted  by 
the  cathedral  of  Saint-Pierre,  that  a  certain  Monsieur 
d'Herblay,  once  a  Musketeer  of  King  Louis  XIII,  under 
the  sword  name  of  Aramis,  became,  in  his  later  years, 
the  Bishop  of  Vannes;  while  if  the  present  Pilgrim  ever 
happens  to  be  at  Quiberon,  he  is  going  to  make  the  trip 
by  boat  to  Belle-Isle-en-Mer,  not  for  the  purpose  of  see- 
ing the  villa  of  Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt,  but  of  hunting 


240       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

a  grotto  worthy  of  being  the  scene  of  the  conflict  in 
which  Porthos  died  Hke  a  Titan. 

A  few  miles  from  Nantes  is  Indret,  with  its  extensive 
marine  engine  works.  It  was  there  that  Alphonse 
Daudet  laid  the  scenes  of  some  of  the  most  poignant 
chapters  of  "Jack."  Daudet,  in  his  reminiscences,  has 
told  that  the  whole  episode  of  Indret  was  imaginary. 
He  needed  a  great  centre  of  the  iron-working  industry; 
he  hesitated  between  Creuzot  and  Indret.  Finally  he 
decided  in  favour  of  the  latter  because  of  the  river  life, 
the  Loire,  and  the  Port  of  Saint-Nazaire.  It  occa- 
sioned a  journey  and  many  short  trips  during  the  sum- 
mer of  1874.  Taking  in  spirit  with  him  the  pathetic 
little  son  of  Ida  de  Bzrancyy  soi-disant  actress,  the  novel- 
ist set  about  becoming  familiar  with  the  atmosphere, 
the  class  of  people  among  whom  his  hero's  life  was  to 
be  passed.  He  spent  many  long  hours  on  the  island  of 
Indret,  walked  through  the  enormous  shops  during  work- 
ing hours  and  in  the  more  impressive  periods  of  repose. 
He  saw  the  Roudis*  house  with  its  little  garden; 
he  went  up  and  down  the  Loire,  from  Saint-Nazaire 
to  Nantes,  on  a  boat  which  rolled  and  seemed  tipsy 
like  its  old  rower,  who  was  much  surprised  that  Daudet 
had  not  preferred  to  take  the  Basse-Indre  railway  or  the 
Paimbceuf  steamer.  And  the  harbour,  the  trans- 
atlantic liners,  the  engine  rooms,  which  he  inspected  in 
detail,  furnished  him  with  the  real  notes  for  his  study. 


KING  rent's  CASTLB 


XVI.  A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  TARTARIN* 

The  Rails  of  the  P.-L.-M. — At  the  "Empereurs" — Streets  of 
Tarascon — The  Baobab  Villa — The  Castle  of  King  Rene — The 
Bridge  to  Beaucaire — The  Writing  of  "  Tartarin  de  Tarascon** 


*This  chapter  is  based  largely  on  an  article  written  by  the  Pilgrim  many 
years  ago,  and  originally  appearing  in  the  Bookman  for  October,  1901.  In 
the  previous  July,  being  in  Paris,  he  decided  that  he  would  visit  the  lair  of 
Alphonse  Daudet's  immortal  lion-slayer  and  Alpine  climber.  The  first  im- 
pressions were  written  in  the  quaint  Provencal  inn  that  bore  the  sonorous 
name  of  "Hotel  des  Empereurs" — perhaps  it  was  "Grand  Hotel  des  Empe- 
reurs" — and,  in  the  Esplanade,  on  cafe  tables  that  must  once  have  been 
banged  by  the  illustrious  fist  of  Tartarin  himself.  Having  absorbed  the  flavour 
of  Tarascon,  paid  due  respects  to  the  "Tarasque,"  investigated  every  little 
alley  leading  to  the  Rhone,  peered  into  the  castle  of  King  Rene,  erstwhile 
habitation  of  the  Montenegrin  prince,  and  paced  reverently  the  bridge  to 
Beaucaire,  the  Pilgrim  followed  the  Tartarian  trail  farther,  first  to  Mar- 
seilles, and  thence,  by  French  tramp  steamer  on  which  he  was  the  only  pas- 
senger, across  the  Mediterranean  to  the  land  of  the  "Teurs."  Since  then 
he  has  twice  caught  glimpses  of  Tarascon,  the  last  time  being  in  May,  1917. 
But  he  feels  that,  with  certain  changes,  the  old  story,  written  white-hot, 
should  stand. 

241 


242       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Tarascon^  July  lo,  igoi. 

It  has  been  a  day  of  heat  and  dust.  As  the  vesti- 
buled  rapide  of  the  P.-L.-M.  drew  away  from  the 
southern  fortifications,  and  flung  itself  out  toward  the 
Foret  de  Fontainebleau,  the  fog  and  haze  of  the  morning 
lifted,  and  the  sun  came  out  and  blazed  obliquely 
down.  In  a  little  while  the  hot  dust  was  filtering 
through  the  windows,  parching  the  throat;  the  eye 
became  tired  of  watching  the  changing  panorama  of 
little  hills  and  valleys,  villages  and  rivers;  and  even 
the  jokes  and  the  gaudy  cartoons  of  the  French  comic 
papers  began  to  pall.  The  white  ticket  in  pocket  read 
"Tarascon";  and  the  books  on  the  seat — thrown  by 
prophetic  chance  into  the  already  groaning  suit  case 
at  the  very  moment  of  departure,  and  brought  over  the 
Atlantic — told  of  one  Tartarin  of  that  place,  and  soon, 
as  the  train  clattered  on  through  the  dust,  the  rails 
beneath  began  singing  their  rhythmical  song  about 
*' Tartarin  de  Tarascon!  Tartarin  de  Tarascon!  Tar- 
tarin de  Tarascon!" 

If  the  heat  and  whirling  dust  parched  the  throat, 
there  was,  at  least,  some  consolation  when  the  train 
slackened  its  speed  and  drew  into  a  station,  and  the 
guard  droned  his  cinq  minutes  d'arretly  and  a  white- 
aproned  waiter  wheeled  up  alongside  the  carriage  win- 
dows a  white-spread  table  gleaming  with  amber  bocks. 
Only  there  were  860-odd  kilometres  to  be  covered,  and 
twelve  hours  in  which  to  do  it,  and  those  pleasant 
little  oases  were  sadly  infrequent.  Midday:  the 
sun  blazing  more  furiously  than  ever — the  dust  swirl- 
ing in  great  gusts.     At   Dijon  there  was  temporary 


A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  TARTARIN        243 

balm,  and  then  the  train  wound  screaming  among  the 
vineyards  of  the  golden  hillsides.  In  July  heat  and 
discomfort  the  afternoon  wore  along.  Lyons  was  left 
behind,  and  soon,  from  the  window  of  the  lurching  train, 
we  were  looking  out  on  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  and  the 
river  itself,  flanked  by  the  pretty,  pleasant  Provence 
hills.  Then  gradually  the  dusk  came  down,  deepening 
into  night,  and  of  Avignon  could  be  seen  only  the  lights 
and  the  outlines  of  the  housetops.  Within,  the  oil 
lamps  overhead  shone  dimly,  blickering  In  the  draught; 
the  eyes  grew  drowsy,  and  the  head  began  to  nod. 
Then,  a  perceptible  slackening  of  speed,  the  whine  of 
the  brakes,  and — "Tarascon!  Tarascon!  Tarascon!" 
/  am  about  to  descend  steps  made  immortal  by  Tartarin 
and  his  faithful  camel! 

Tarascon,  July  11,  igbi. 
Sleep  here  in  the  "Empereurs"  has  been  a  restless 
one,  broken  by  the  baying,  howling,  yelping,  of  all  the 
dogs  in  the  world.  Before  turning  out  the  light  I  re- 
read the  last  chapter  of  *' Tartarin  de  Tarascon,"  for  its 
story  of  the  return  of  Tartarin  from  Algeria,  and  its 
association  with  the  flight  of  stone  steps  by  which  one 
descends  from  the  railway  station  to  the  street  below. 
You  will  remember  the  last  episodes  of  the  adventures 
among  the  lions,  the  mishap  in  this  affair  with  the  Prince 
of  Montenegro,  the  discovery  of  Baya's  infidelities,  the 
defiance  of  the  East  from  the  Oratory  of  the  Mosque, 
the  pathetic  return  to  France  with  Captain  Barbassou 
on  the  steamship  Zouave.  The  Lion  of  Tarascon  is 
plucked  to  the  last  feather,  overwhelmed  with  shame 


244       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

and  humiliation.  He  slinks  Into  a  railway  carriage  at 
Marseilles,  hoping  to  steal  to  his  home  In  the  Baobab 
Villa  silently  and  undiscovered.  Then,  as  the  train 
speeds  on,  there  looms  Into  sight  the  pathetic  figure  of 
the  deserted  camel,  the  sharer  and  witness  of  all  his 
Algerian  misfortunes.  Tarascon  is  reached.  Down 
the  station  steps  Tartarin  stumbles.  Then,  the  great 
cry:  "Long  life  to  Tartarin,  the  Lion-Slayer!'*  He 
feels  that  death  has  come;  he  believes  it  a  hoax.  But 
no,  there  is  all  Tarascon  waving  its  hats.  He  is  tossed 
aloft  and  carried  in  triumph.  The  hide  of  the  blind 
lion  sent  to  the  brave  Commandant  Bravida  has  been 
magnified  by  the  splendid  sun  of  Tarascon  Into  a  herd 
of  hons  of  which  Tartarin  has  made  marmalade.  The 
appearance  of  the  camel  gives  the  final  touch.  For  an 
instant  Tarascon  believes  that  Its  dragon,  its  "Tar- 
asque,"  has  come  again.  Tartarin  sets  his  fellow- 
citizens  at  ease.  *'This  is  my  camel,"  he  says.  "It 
Is  a  noble  beast.     It  saw  me  kill  all  my  lions.'* 

Whereupon  he  familiarly  takes  the  arm  of  the  com- 
mandant, who  is  red  with  pleasure;  and,  followed  by  his 
camel,  surrounded  by  the  cap-hunters,  acclaimed  by 
all  the  population,  he  placidly  proceeds  toward  the  Bao- 
bab Villa,  and,  on  the  march,  thus  commences  the  ac- 
count of  his  mighty  hunting:  "You  are  to  imagine,  of 
an  evening,  out  in  the  depths  of  the  Sahara  " ! 

TarascoUy  July  J2,  igoi. 
Tarasco'nian  hospitality  has  to  offer  to  the  visitor 
within  the  city  gates  two  or  three  little  inns  built  of 
stone  and  stucco — relics,  perhaps,  not  of  remote  cen- 


A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  TARTARIN         245 

tunes,  but  certainly  of  days  long  before  the  town  be- 
came immortal  through  the  exploits  of  her  lion-slayer. 
The  one  in  which  I  am  staying  is  known  as  the  "Em- 
pereurs."  I  don't  think  that  the  name  in  any  sense 
indicates  political  partisanship.  But  it  sounds;  it 
sounds,  in  its  rolling  of  the  "rs.'*  Had  there  been  in 
the  vocabulary  or  in  the  sun-inflamed  imagination  of 
the  Tarasconese  a  title  more  sonorous,  more  magnifi- 
cent, more  magniloquent,  it  probably  would  have  been 
something  else.  But  I  am  a  guest  at  the  "Empereurs." 
It  is  a  tiny  French  inn  of  a  type  so  common  here  in  the 
little  towns  of  Provence,  that,  looking  about  in  the  salle- 
d-manger  it  requires  very  little  fancy  to  picture  the 
city's  Great  Man  dining  in  state,  attended  by  Bompard, 
and  Bravida,  and  Pascalon,  and  even  the  insidious, 
envious,  and  jaundiced  Costecalde,  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  merry  company  of  cap-poppers,  and  Alpinists,  and 
colonists. 

Tarascon  is  a  pretty  white  town  of  nine  thousand 
inhabitants,  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhone,  some 
fifteen  or  eighteen  leagues  to  the  north  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. Not  far  away  is  Avignon,  where  once  upon  a 
time  a  Pope  used  to  sit  in  state  and  rivalry  to  another 
Pope  in  Rome;  and  a  few  miles  to  the  west  is  Nimes, 
with  its  splendid  Roman  amphitheatre.  Yonder,  on 
the  horizon,  are  the  hills,  the  little  Alps  of  Provence, 
that  fired  Tartarin  to  his  conquest  of  the  Jungfrau. 
Over  those  hills  Alphonse  Daudet  and  his  brother 
tramped  as  boys,  loitering  on  the  pleasant  banks  of  the 
Rhone,  listening  to  the  music  of  the  country  fairs,  and 
watching  the  steps  of  the  Jarandole, 


246       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Round  the  city  of  Tartarin  there  runs  a  wide  street, 
shaded  by  trees,  and  lined  by  shops  and  cafes.  Here 
and  there  over  a  shop  is  the  sign:  "Chez  Tartarin" — 
evidence  that  the  town  is  not  entirely  unconscious  of 
the  source  of  her  glory.  This  broad  street  is  known  as 
the  Esplanade.  It  was  here  that  Tartarin  trained  him- 
self to  the  hardships  of  his  Algerian  enterprise,  making 
the  complete  circuit,  at  double  step,  six  or  seven  times 
of  a  morning.  After  one  has  made  the  tour  hallowed 
by  his  footsteps  the  feat  does  not  seem  so  astonishing. 
The  town  within  the  Esplanade  is  a  labyrinth  of  narrow, 
winding  alleys.  Here  and  there,  in  front  of  some  mu- 
nicipal building,  there  is  a  tiny,  open  space,  dignified  by 
the  name  of  square.  In  itself  Tarascon  is  simply  a  town 
of  Provence,  amazingly  quaint  of  course  to  American 
eyes,  but  distinguished  from  other  towns  of  this  comer 
of  the  world  chiefly  on  account  of  its  associations  with 
the  fame  of  Tartarin.  Here,  at  the  end  of  the  Rue  des 
Martyrs,  a  street  which  seems  to  have  remained  practi- 
cally unchanged  since  the  fifteenth  century,  is  the  Hotel 
de  Ville,  where  the  sacred  effigy  of  "La  Tarasque"  is 
kept.  Here  also  was  held  the  famous  trial  described 
in  later  chapters  of  "Port  Tarascon.'* 

What  a  scene  that  is!  The  heated  court  room,  the 
impassioned  harangue  of  the  public  prosecutor,  the 
excited  populace,  the  procession  of  witnesses  contra- 
dicting one  another  and  attesting  one  another's  deaths, 
and,  above  all,  Tartarin,  serene  in  misfortune,  firm  in 
the  conviction  of  his  own  innocence,  suddenly  rising 
and  exclaiming  with  uplifted  hand:  "Before  God  and 
man  I  swear  that  I  never  wrote  that  letter":  then,  on 


A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  TARTARIN        247 

examining  the  document  more  closely,  continuing  simply : 
"True,  that  is  my  writing.  The  letter  is  from  me,  but 
I  had  forgotten  it." 

I  have  been  hunting  for  the  Baobab  Villa,  and  if  the 
films  in  the  camera  develop  happily  they  will  carry 
home  the  story  of  my  complete  success.  In  the  first 
chapter  of  "Tartarin  de  Tarascon"  Daudet  gave  very 
specific  directions.  The  home  of  Tartarin  was  at  the 
entrance  of  the  town,  the  third  house,  left-hand  side, 
on  the  road  to  Avignon;  a  pretty  little  Tarasconese  villa, 
garden  before,  balcony  behind,  very  white  walls,  green 
blinds,  and  on  the  steps  of  the  gate  a  brood  of  little 
Savoyards  playing  at  hop-scotch  or  sleeping  in  the 
blessed  sun  with  their  heads  on  their  shoe-blacking 
boxes.  Lacking  all  trace  of  the  Savoyards  there  is 
a  house  as  described  in  the  place  indicated.  It  is  of  no 
particular  importance  that,  somewhere  in  one  of  his 
reminiscences,  Daudet  told  us  that  the  Baobab  Villa 
was,  in  reality,  some  leagues  farther  south  and  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Rhone.  To  the  end  of  my  days 
I  shall  retain  the  profound  and  unshakable  conviction 
that  my  house  was  the  house  of  Tartarin. 

At  one  point  of  the  Esplanade  a  road,  short  and 
narrow,  leads  to  the  Beaucaire  bridge,  passing  the  old 
castle  of  King  Rene,  in  modem  times  used  as  a  prison 
flanked  by  its  four  towers.  Literature  in  the  reading 
room  of  the  "Empereurs"  supplies  the  information 
that  the  edifice  dates  from  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth 
century  and  was  built  and  occupied  by  King  Rene 
of  Anjou.  As  if  that  were  of  either  interest  or  import- 
ance!   What  really  counts  is  that  in  this  feudal  strong- 


248       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

hold,  washed  by  the  waters  of  the  Rhone,  Tartarin  was 
kept  a  prisoner  in  the  dark  days  of  his  downfall;  and 
that  it  Was  here  also  that  his  friend  of  the  native  quarter 
of  Algiers  and  of  the  night  watch  in  the  copse  of  oleand- 
ers, the  Prince  of  Montenegro,  was  lodged  for  three 
years  at  the  expense  of  the  State.  You  remember  how 
it  puzzled  Tartarin  that  the  Prince  knew  only  one  side 
of  Tarascon.  That,  of  course,  happened  to  be  the  side 
visible  from  the  jail  windows.  "I  went  out  but  little," 
said  his  Highness.  "And  Tartarin  was  discreetly 
afraid  to  question  him  further.  All  great  existences 
have  mysterious  sides." 

It  was  with  no  lightness  of  heart  that,  standing  in  the 
middle  of  the  long  bridge  that  spans  the  Rhone  con- 
necting Tarascon  with  Beaucaire,  I  recalled  the  last 


TARTARIN,  ADIEU ! 


recorded  crossing  of  Tartarin  and  the  wave  of  sad 
farewell.  When  that  time  comes,  at  the  end  of  "Port 
Tarascon,"  there  is  no  galejade  on  the  lips.  Master 
of  pathos  as  he  was  in  such  books  as  "Jack"  and 
"Fromont  et  Risler"  Daudet  never  tugged  more  poig- 
nantly at  the  heart's  strings  than  in  that  picture  of  the 


A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  TARTARIN         249 

Lion  of  Tarascon,  shorn  of  his  glory,  crossing  the  bridge 
to  die  of  a  broken  heart  in  exile  in  Beaucaire. 

Once,  looking  toward  the  Castle  of  Beaucaire,  at  the  top,  quite 
at  the  top,  I  thought  I  could  distinguish  someone  levelling  a  spy- 
glass at  Tarascon.  He  had  a  look  like  Bompard.  He  disappeared 
into  the  tower,  and  then  came  back  with — another  man,  very  stout, 
who  seemed  to  be  Tartarin.  This  one  took  the  spy-glass,  looked 
through  it,  and  then  dropped  it,  to  make  a  sign  with  his  arms  as  if 
of  recognition;  he  was  so  far  off,  so  small,  so  vague. 

Tartarin  of  Tarascon  had  looked  for  the  last  time 
upon  his  kingdom. 

II 

Daudet  himself  has  told  the  story  of  the  writing  of 
"Tartarin  de  Tarascon"  in  the  "History  of  My  Books." 
Perhaps  the  first  idea  came  at  the  time  of  the  journey 
to  Algeria  in  1 861-2.  But  the  tale  was  not  written 
until  seven  years  later.  It  first  appeared  as  a  serial 
in  the  Petit  Moniteur  Universel^  where  it  was  a  complete 
failure.  The  paper  was  a  popular  one  and  its  readers 
had  no  comprehension  of  printed  sarcasm.  Some 
stopped  their  subscriptions  and  others  resorted  to  per- 
sonal insult.  One  man  wrote  the  author:  "Ah!  indeed 
— ^what  does  that  prove .''  Imbecile ! "  and  fiercely  signed 
his  name.  After  ten  or  twelve  instalments  Daudet 
took  the  story  to  the  Figaro^  where  it  was  better  un- 
derstood, but  came  in  conflict  with  other  animosities. 
The  secretary  of  the  paper's  editorial  staff  was  devoted 
to  Algeria,  and  the  light  way  in  which  Daudet  had 
written  about  the  colony  exasperated  him.    Not  being 


250       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

able  to  prevent  the  publication  of  the  story,  he  arranged 
to  divide  it  up  into  intermittent  fragments,  on  the 
excuse  of  "abundance  of  matter,"  with  the  result  that 
most  readers  lost  interest. 

Then  came  more  trouble.  In  serial  form  the  hero 
had  been  called  Barbarin  of  Tarascon.  In  Tarascon 
there  was  an  old  family  of  Barbarins  who  threatened 
a  law  suit  in  case  the  name  was  not  immediately 
changed.  Daudet  hastened  to  substitute  Tartarin 
for  Barbarin,  but  in  the  first  edition  of  the  book  there 
are  Barbarins  and  Tartarins.  There  were  others  in 
Tarascon,  besides  the  family  that  felt  itself  directly 
lampooned,  that  found  offence  in  the  joyous  tale.  Even 
in  later  years  there  were  natives  of  the  little  town  who 
sought  Daudet  in  Paris  in  the  same  belligerent  spirit 
with  which  the  Irishman  visited  Thackeray.  "It 
is  something,  I  tell  you,"  confessed  Daudet,  "to  feel 
the  hatred  of  a  whole  town  on  your  shoulders.  Even 
to  this  day,  when  I  travel  in  the  south,  I  am  always  ill 
at  ease  when  I  pass  through  Tarascon." 

But  he  was  very  proud,  and  justly  so,  of  the  creation 
for  all  that.  Judged  impartially,  at  a  distance  of  some 
years,  Tartarin,  running  his  wild,  unbridled  course, 
seemed  to  him  to  possess  the  qualities  of  youth  and  life 
and  truth — the  truth  of  the  country  beyond  the  Loire, 
which  inflates  and  exaggerates,  never  lies,  and  taras- 
conises  all  the  time.  "But,"  he  said,  "I  confess  that, 
great  as  is  my  love  of  style,  of  beautiful  prose,  melodious 
and  highly  coloured,  in  my  opinion  these  should  not  be 
the  novelist's  only  care.  His  real  delight  should  con- 
sist in  the  creation  of  real  persons,  in  establishing,  by 


A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  TARTARIN         251 

virtue  of  their  verisimilitude,  types  of  men  and  women 
who  will  go  about  henceforth  through  the  world  with 
the  names,  the  gestures,  the  grimaces  with  which  he  has 
endowed  them  and  which  make  people  speak  of  them — ■ 
without  reference  to  their  creator  and  without  mention- 
ing his  name.  For  my  part,  my  emotion  is  always  the 
same,  when  I  hear  someone  say  of  a  person  he  has  met 
in  his  daily  life,  of  one  of  the  innumerable  puppets 
of  the  political  comedy:  "He  is  a  Tartarin,  a  Monpavon 
— a  Delobelle."  At  such  times  a  thrill  runs  through 
me,  the  thrill  of  pride  that  a  father  feels,  hidden  in  the 
crowd,  when  his  son  is  being  applauded,  and  all  the  time 
longing  to  cry  out:  "That  is  my  boy.'* 


THE  CHATEAU  D  IF 

XVII.    MEDITERRANEAN   WATERS 

Villemessant  and  Dantes's  Escape — The  Magic  of  Marseilles — 
Conrad's  "The  Arrow  of  Gold" — Dickens's  "Little  Dorrit" — 
Daudet's  "  Tartarin"  and  " Sapho" — R.  H.  Davis  and  Mar- 
seilles— The  Shadow  of  "Monte  Crista — The  Cannehiere  and  the 
Catalan  Quarter — The  Chateau  d'lf  and  Its  Story  — The  Island 
of  Monte-Cristo — The  Real  Edmond  Dantes — Maquet's  Share 
in  Writing  "Monte-Cristo" — Zola  in  Marseilles — Along  the 
Riviera — De  Maupassant  and  Cannes. 


ONE  of  the  most  conspicuous  figures  of  French 
journaHsm  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
Henri  Villemessant,  the  founder  of  the  Paris 
Figaro.  He  left  his  own  "Memoires  d'un  Journal- 
iste,"  and  a  score  of  his  contemporaries  have  written 
of  his  peculiarities  and  his  vigorous  personality.     For 

25Z 


MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS  253 

example,  there  is  Alphonse  Daudet's  illuminating  sketch 
in  "Trente  Ans  de  Paris."  Villemessant,  hardened 
veteran  of  a  thousand  bitter  squabbles,  was  neither 
over  emotional  nor  easily  impressed.  Yet  one  morning 
of  the  eighteen-forties  he  made  his  way  home  in  the 
small  hours  with  news  that  he  was  eager  to  impart. 
His  wife  was  fast  asleep,  but  he  quickly  shook  her  into 
consciousness,  "My  wife,  I  have  something  to  tell 
you/*  "What  is  it?"  "Edmond  Dantes  has  just 
escaped  from  the  Chateau  d*If."  It  was  as  if  it  had 
been  thirty  years  earlier,  and  the  message  had  conveyed 
the  information:  "Bonaparte  left  the  Island  of  Elba 
five  days  ago.  He  landed  at  Golfe  Juan,  and  the  south 
of  France  seems  to  be  rallying  to  his  banners."  Vil- 
lemessant was  merely  a  striking  example.  Thousands 
of  other  readers  were  equally  agitated  when  the  narra- 
tive of  Alexandre  Dumas's  "The  Count  of  Monte 
Cristo"  reached  the  point  where  Dantes  took  the  place 
in  the  burial  sack  of  the  dead  Abbe  Faria  and  was 
hurled  from  the  rock  into  the  sea.  The  story  is  also  a 
story  of  Rome  and  of  Paris.  But  in  its  epic  aspect  it 
belongs  above  all  to  Marseilles. 

Every  writer  of  fiction  who  turns  to  Marseilles  as  a 
background  may  be  relied  upon,  sooner  or  later,  to 
introduce  the  old  saying  of  the  townspeople  to  the 
eff*ect  that  if  Paris  had  a  Cannebiere  it  would  be  another 
Marseilles.  It  is  a  laughter-provoking  saying,  but  one 
does  not  laugh  in  just  the  same  way  if  one  happens  to 
know  Marseilles.  To  introduce  the  personal  note: 
When  the  Pilgrim  first  visited  Marseilles  many  years 
ago  he  anticipated  a  kind  of  Mediterranean  Liverpool. 


254       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

The  train  carrying  him  from  the  Tarascon  of  Tartarin 
entered  the  Saint-Charles  Station.  Without  leaving  the 
building  he  passed  from  the  station  into  the  Terminus 
Hotel  of  the  same  name.  The  attendant  showing  him 
to  his  room  threw  wide  the  windows  and  the  Pilgrim 
looked  out  to  gasp  and  gasp  again.  It  is  his  good 
fortune  to  have  known  the  Bay  of  Naples,  to  have 
seen  the  orange  groves  of  Genoa  in  the  sunshine  of  an 
Easter  morning;  to  have  basked  in  the  loveliness  of  the 
Lake  of  Como;  to  have  watched  the  sunrise  from  the 
Rigi-Kulm;  to  have  been  agitated  by  the  mingled  bitter- 
ness and  joy  of  puppy  love  in  the  Castle  of  Chillon, 
where  his  mind  should  have  been  occupied  by  memories 
of  Bonnivard  and  the  Byronic  poem;  to  have  found  in 
the  spectacle  of  the  Esterel  and  the  lies  de  Lerins  from 
the  Croisette  of  Cannes — after  months  of  Belgium  under 
the  Prussian  yoke  and  an  enforced  journey  through 
Germany  watched  by  eyes  of  glaring  hate — a  peace  and 
beauty  that  he  had  forgotten  existed  in  the  world. 
But  looking  backward  he  can  recall  no  thrill  just  like 
the  one  stirred  by  the  picture  framed  by  the  windows  of 
the  Saint-Charles:  to  the  right,  the  splendid  mountains; 
to  the  left,  Notre-Dame  de  la  Garde;  and  between,  in  the 
foreground,  the  Vieux  Port,  swarming  with  masts;  and 
beyond,  the  dazzling  bay,  spotted  with  little  islands,  one 
of  them  crowned  by  the  outlines  of  the  Chateau  dTf. 

Romance  has  ever  felt,  and  probably  ever  will  feel, 
the  magic  spell  of  Marseilles.  Frank  Norris  said  that 
there  were  in  the  United  States  only  three  "novel" 
cities:  New  York,  New  Orleans,  and  San  Francisco. 
France  has  many  "novel"  cities,  but,  excluding  of 


The  Vieux  Port  of  Marseilles.  Joseph  Conrad  writing  to-day  ot 
Marseilles  in  "The  Arrow  of  Gold"  is  following  in  illustrious  footsteps. 
Dumas 's  "Monte  Cristo,"  when  the  scene  was  in  Marseilles  and  the 
Chateau  d  'If,  was  an  epic.  The  Vieux  Port,  reeking  of  the  Seven  Seas, 
calls  compellingly  to  fiction. 


MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS  255 

course  Paris,  none  so  stirring  to  the  imagination  as 
Marseilles.  Rare  is  the  writer  who  knows  it  and  who 
does  not  at  some  time  turn  it  in  some  way  into  copy. 
Only  yesterday  it  was  Joseph  Conrad  with  his  "The 
Arrow  of  Gold."  "Certain  streets,"  he  said  at  the 
beginning  of  that  tale,  "have  an  atmosphere  of  their 
own,  a  sort  of  universal  fame  and  the  particular  affec- 
tion of  their  citizens.  One  of  such  streets  is  the  Can- 
nebiere,  and  the  jest:  Tf  Paris  had  a  Cannebiere  it 
would  be  a  little  Marseilles'  is  the  jocular  expression  of 
municipal  pride.  I,  too,  have  been  under  the  spell. 
For  me  it  has  been  a  street  leading  into  the  unknown. 
Take  Robert  Hichens's  "The  Garden  of  Allah"  of  a 
dozen  years  ago.  In  that  tale  even  across  the  desert 
sands  stretched  the  reminiscent  shadow  of  Notre-Dame 
de  la  Garde.  Guy  de  Maupassant  pictured  the  laby- 
rinth of  winding  streets  cresting  the  eminence  to  the 
west  of  the  Vieux  Port  in  his  terrible  story:  "Le  Port." 
In  Marseilles  were  laid  the  scenes  of  certain  chapters 
of  Dickens's  "Little  Dorrit."  Dickens  first  saw  the 
city  in  1844,  just  about  the  time  that  "Monte  Cristo" 
was  investing  it  with  a  lasting  fame  in  fiction.  The 
town  of  the  story  was  the  town  of  1825.  Marseilles  is 
in  the  pages  of  Daudet.  We  can  see  it  with  the  eyes 
of  Tartarin,  about  to  embark  for  the  land  of  the  lions, 
or  with  those  of  Jean  Gaussin,  of  "Sapho,"  waiting  for 
the  coming  of  Fanny  Legrand  in  the  Hotel  du  Jeune 
Anarcharsis — there  is  a  street  of  that  name,  hard  by 
the  Vieux  Port — an  old  inn  facing  the  harbour  and 
open  in  the  sunshine  to  the  raucous  cries  of  the  sailor 
men  and  the  strange  odours  of  a  hundred  foreign  ports. 


256       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

For  Marseilles  interpreted  by  an  American  of  the 
lighter  school  of  fiction  we  can  turn  to  the  late  Richard 
Harding  Davis.  Davis's  obvious  affection  for  the  city 
is  the  more  striking  for  the  reason  that  it  is  introduced 
in  tales  dealing  with  scenes  laid  thousands  of  miles 
away;  for  example,  one  of  his  very  best  short  stories, 
"The  Consul,"  and  the  most  finished  of  all  his  novels, 
"Captain  Macklin.**  In  the  former  tale,  in  order  to 
emphasize  old  Marshall's  pitiable  plight  in  his  wretched 
South  American  post,  the  author  recalled  the  days  of 
former  glory  when  his  hero  was  our  Consul  General  at 
Marseilles,  who  there,  in  his  official  capacity,  had  been 
called  upon  to  welcome  Adelina  Patti,  then  the  young 
queen'of  song.  In  the  concluding  chapter  of  "Captain 
Macklin,"  Royal,  in  his  home  on  the  banks  of  the  Hud- 
son River,  receives  Laguerre's  cablegram  off'ering  him 
a  commission  in  the  French  service.  Then,  beyond 
the  light  of  the  candles,  beyond  the  dull  red  curtains 
jealously  drawn  against  the  winter  landscape,  beyond 
even  "the  slight  white  figure  with  its  crown  of  burnished 
copper,"  he  saw  the  swarming  harbour  of  Marseilles. 
He  saw  the  swaggering  Turcos  in  their  scarlet  breeches, 
the  crowded  troopships,  and  from  every  ship's  mast  the 
glorious  tricolor  of  France;  the  flag  that  in  ten  short 
years  had  again  risen,  that  was  flying  over  advancing 
columns  in  China,  in  Africa,  in  Madagascar;  over 
armies  that  were  giving  France,  for  Alsace-Lorraine, 
new  and  great  colonies  in  every  seaboard  in  the  world. 

But  dominating  the  fiction  of  Marseilles  is  the  gigan- 
tic shadow  of  "The  Count  of  Monte  Cristo,"  which 
began  on  the  28th  of  February,  181 5,  when  the  watch- 


MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS  257 

man  in  the  tower  of  Notre-Dame  de  la  Garde  signalled 
the  arrival  of  the  Pharaon  from  Smyrna,  Trieste,  and 
Naples.  To-day,  although  the  city  has  greatly  changed, 
the  visitor  with  the  inclination  may  easily  follow  the 
main  trails  of  the  story.  From  the  platform  of  Fort 
Saint-Jean  he  may  watch  incoming  vessels  as  the  specta- 
tors of  1 8 1 5  watched  the  approaching  Pharaon.  Dantes, 
landing  at  the  Quai  d'Orleans,  now  the  Quai  de  la 
Fratemlte,  passed  along  the  Cannebiere  and  the  Rue 
Noailles,  to  his  father's  apartment  in  the  Alices  de 
Meilhan.  These  are  all  familiar  streets  of  the  modem 
city.  Following  the  left  or  eastern  bank  of  the  Vieux 
Port  the  road  leads  along  the  Quai  Rive  Neuve  and 
the  Boulevard  du  Pharo  to  the  quarter  still  known  as 
*'Les  Catalans."  At  the  circular  Place  des  Catalans 
begins  the  Comiche  Road.  The  section  is  one  of 
the  quaintest  of  all  the  quaint  sections  of  Marseilles. 
It  was  the  home  of  the  lovely  Mercedes,  the  betrothed 
of  Dantes,  the  Madame  de  Morcerf  of  later  years,  and 
the  mother  of  Albert.  Prowling  about  this  quarter 
in  the  winter  of  191 2  the  Pilgrim  found  an  inn  of  great 
antiquity  that  answered  to  almost  the  last  detail  the 
description  of  "La  Reserve,"  where  Danglars  and 
Fernand  plotted  evilly,  and  where  was  written,  in  dis- 
guised hand,  the  letter  of  denunciation  to  the  procureur 
du  roi.  It  was  also  the  scene  of  the  interrupted  mar- 
riage feast.  The  home  of  Villefort  adjoined  the  Palais 
de  Justice,  then,  as  now,  facing  the  Place  Monthyon, 
which  may  be  roughly  designated  as  being  half  way 
between  the  Cannebiere  and  the  church  of  Notre-Dame 
de  la  Garde. 


258       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Apart  from  its  significance  as  a  factor  in  "Monte 
Gristo"  the  Chateau  d'lf  is  one  of  the  pleasantest  ex- 
cursions that  is  to  be  found  in  many  thousand  leagues 
of  travel.  The  journey  there,  the  stay,  and  the  return 
consume  just  the  right  amount  of  time  (the  Pilgrim 
is  speaking  of  conditions  as  he  found  them  six  or  seven 
years  ago  and  which  may  or  may  not  have  changed). 
The  little  boat  from  the  Quai  de  la  Fratemite  requires 
not  more  than  half  an  hour  for  the  trip  to  the  rock. 
Through  the  Vieux  Port,  to  the  right  old  Marseilles 
with  its  mouldy  houses  and  winding  alleys,  to  the  left 
the  towering  Notre-Dame  de  la  Garde,  under  the  Pont 
transhordeur,  and  then  between  the  Forts  of  Saint- 
Nicholas  and  Saint- Jean.  The  Ilot  dTf  is  a  triangle  of 
barren  rock  surrounded  by  a  rampart.  The  donjon 
is  reached  by  a  gangway  that  has  replaced  the  ancient 
drawbridge.  Lighted  tapers  enable  the  visitor  to 
explore  the  cell  of  Faria  and  the  cell  with  the  legendary 
hole.  The  Pilgrim  begs  leave  to  quote  from  a  little 
guide  that  he  picked  up  on  the  Marseilles  quays: 


En  laissant  de  cote  la  legende  d^Edmond  Dantes  et  de  I' abbe  Faria, 
de  nombreux  fails  hisioriques  se  rattacheni  au  sinistre  monument. 
Citons  parmi  les  prisonniers  de  marque  les  freres  Serres;  I' Homme  au 
Masque  de  Fer,  qui  n'y  testa  que  peu  de  jours;  le  matelot  Jean  Paul,  qui 
y  sejourna  31  ans;  Mirabeau  {1774-75);  Philippe  Egalite;  le  Marquis 
de  Riviere;  huit  des  gardes  d'honneur  qui  avaient  comploie  la  mort  de 
Napoleon  (i8lj)',  I'abbe  Desmasures  {18 14);  le  commissaire  Gohet,  qui 
terrorisa  Marseille  sous  le  Premier  Empire  {1815);  Boissin,  qui  bless  a 
le  general  Lagarde  a  Nimes;  les  revokes  de  juin  184.8,  300  personnes 
designees  pour  passer  devant  les  commissions  mixte  {,1851);  et  enfin  513 
vaincus  de  la  Commune  de  1871,  parmi  lesquels  leurs  chefs,  Gaston 


MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS  259 

Cremieux,  le  general  Pelissier,  et  Aug.  Etienne. — Le  corps  de  Kleber  y 
fut  depose  30  ans  a  son  retour  d'Egypte  {1801), 


Apart  from  the  legend  of  Edmond  Dantes  and  the  Abbe  Faria 
there  are  a  number  of  historical  facts  connected  with  the  sinister 
monument.  Among  famous  prisoners  were  the  Serres  brothers;  the 
sailor,  Jean  Paul,  who  stayed  there  3 1  years;  the  Man  in  the  Iron 
Mask,  who  was  there  only  a  short  time;  Mirabeau  (1774-75); 
Philippe  Egalite;  the  Marquis  de  Rivieres;  eight  of  the  guards  of 
honour  who  had  plotted  the  death  of  Napoleon  (1813);  the  Abbe 
Desmasures  (1814);  Gobet,  who  terrorized  Marseilles  under  the 
First  Empire;  Boissin,  who  wounded  General  Lagarde  at  Nimes; 
the  revolutionists  of  June,  1848;  300  persons  selected  for  political 
examination  in  1851;  and  513  Communists  of  1871,  among  them  the 
leaders,  Gaston  Cremieux,  General  Pelissier,  and  Aug.  Etienne. — 
The  body  of  Kleber  rested  here  for  30  years  after  being  returned 
from  Egypt  in  1801. 

Dumas  first  saw  the  Island  of  Monte  Cristo  in  1842. 
He  was  on  a  tour  in  company  with  Prince  Napoleon, 
a  son  of  Jerome  Bonaparte.  In  a  small  boat  hired  at 
Leghorn  they  visited  Elba,  and  from  there  discerned 
in  the  distance  a  rock  of  sugarloaf  shape  standing  out 
of  the  sea.  It  was  Monte  Cristo,  and  then  and  there 
Dumas  announced  his  intention  of  giving  the  name  to  a 
future  novel.  Then,  in  Peuchet's  "La  Police  Devoilee" 
he  found,  under  the  title  of  "The  Diamond  and  the 
Vengeance, "  the  story  of  Franfois  Picaud,  long  since 
forgotten  for  himself,  but  destined  to  im'mortality  as 
the  Edniond  Dantes  of  romance. 

In  1807  Picaud,  a  journeyman  cobbler,  was  be- 
trothed to  Marguerite  Vigoreux.  On  the  eve  of  his 
marriage  he  was  denounced  as  a  spy  by  jealous  rivals 


26o       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

and  thrown  secretly  into  prison  where  he  remained  for 
seven  years.  During  his  incarceration  he  acted  as 
servant  to  a  rich  Milanese  ecclesiastic  who  suggested 
the  Abbe  Faria.  The  churchman  treated  Picaud  as  a 
son,  and  dying  in  prison  he  bequeathed  to  hjm  seven 
million  francs  on  deposit  in  the  Bank  of  Amsterdam, 
and  told  him  of  a  hiding  place  in  Italy  where  diamonds 
to  the  value  of  twelve  hundred  thousand  francs  and 
three  millions  of  specie — consisting  of  English  guineas, 
French  louls  d'or,  Spanish  quadruples,  Venetian  florins, 
and  ducats  of  Milan — ^were  concealed. 

When  Picaud,  who  had  been  Imprisoned  under  the 
name  of  Joseph  Lucher,  was  freed  after  the  fall  of  the 
Empire  in  1814,  he  gathered  together  the  treasure  be- 
queathed to  him  and  began  to  build  plans  for  ven- 
geance on  the  men  who  had  been  the  cause  of  his  un- 
doing. Their  names  he  did  not  know,  but,  disguised  as 
an  Italian  priest,  he  found  the  least  guilty  of  the  con- 
spirators, and  by  means  of  the  same  story  of  the  dia- 
mond which  Dumas  used  in  "Monte  Cristo,'*  elicited 
from  him  all  the  details'  of  the  plot.  Loupain,  the 
prime  mover  in  the  denouncement  of  seven  years  be- 
fore, had  married  Marguerite  VIgoreux,  prospered, 
and  was  the  owner  of  one  of  the  finest  cafes  in  Paris. 
Unlike  Dumas's  hero,  who  set  all  Paris  wild  with  curios- 
ity by  his  oriental  extravagance,  Picaud  went  to  work 
humbly.  He  sought  and  obtained  employment  as  a 
waiter  in  LoupaIn*s  establishment.  Among  his  fellow- 
servants  were  Gervais  Chaubard  and  Guilhem  Solari, 
the  two  men  who,  with  Loupain,  were  responsible  for 
his  years  of  suffering.     Soon  disaster  began  to  fall  upon 


MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS  261 

the  conspirators.  One  day  Chaubard  disappeared, 
and  his  body,  pierced  by  a  poniard,  was  found  on  the 
Pont  des  Arts.  Loupain's  family  was  disgraced.  He 
himself  was  reduced  to  abject  poverty  and  was  finally 
stabbed  to  death  by  a  masked  man  in  the  gardens  of 
the  Tuileries.  Solari  died  in  frightful  convulsions 
from  poison.  Vengeance  had  been  consummated,  but 
retribution  was  about  to  fall  upon  the  head  of  Picaud. 

When  he  was  leaving  the  Tuileries  Gardens  after  the 
assassination  of  Loupain  he  was  seized  and  carried  away 
to  an  abandoned  quarry.  There,  in  the  darkness,  his 
captor  said:  "Well,  Picaud,  what  name  are  you  passing 
under  now?  Are  you  still  the  priest  Baldini,  or  the 
waiter  Prosper?  In  your  desire  for  vengeance  you  have 
sold  yourself  to  the  devil.  Ten  years  have  been  devoted 
to  the  pursuit  of  three  creatures  you  should  have  spared. 
You  have  dragged  me  down  to  perdition.  The  dia- 
mond by  which  you  bribed  me  was  my  undoing.  I 
killed  him  who  cheated  me.  I  was  arrested,  condemned 
to  the  galleys,  and  for  years  dragged  the  ball  and  chain. 
Making  my  escape  my  one  thought  was  to  reach  and 
punish  the  priest  Baldini.  You  are  in  my  power. 
Do  you  recognize  me?  I  am  Antoine  Allut.  How 
much  will  you  pay  for  bread  and  water?" 

"I  have  no  money." 

"You  have  sixteen  millions,"  replied  the  captor,  who 
went  on  to  enumerate  with  overwhelming  accuracy 
the  Hst  of  his  victim's  investments,  "these  are  my  condi- 
tions. I  will  give  you  something  to  eat  twice  a  day, 
but  for  each  meal  you  must  pay  me  twenty -five  thou- 
sand francs." 


262       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

The  prisoner's  cupidity  proved  stronger  than  his 
hunger.  He  underwent  such  acute  suffering  without 
yielding  that  his  captor  saw  that  he  had  gone  too  far, 
and  at  last  aroused  to  fury  by  this  persistent  obstinacy 
he  threw  himself  upon  Picaud  and  stabbed  him  to  death. 

Crude  as  the  tale  is  it  is  "The  Count  of  Monte  Cristo" 
in  outline.  Picaud  is  Dantes.  The  Abbe  Baldini  the 
Abbe  Busini.  Marguerite  is  Mercedes.  Loupain  is 
Fernand.  Antoine  AUut  is  Caderousse.  Finally  the 
end  of  the  tale  suggests  the  method  by  which  Monte 
Cristo  wrung  from  Danglars  the  stolen  millions  in  the 
cave  of  Luigi  Vampa.  But  considering  the  story  from 
every  side  one  must  not  overlook  the  part  played  by 
Dumas's  chief  collaborator  Auguste  Maquet.  The 
story  as  originally  planned  by  Dumas  was  to  have  begun 
in  Rome  with  the  adventures  involving  the  Count  of 
Monte  Cristo,  Albert  de  Morcerf,  Franz  d'Epinay,  and 
Luigi  Vampa  and  his  bandits.  Thence  the  tale  was  to 
have  shifted  to  Paris  and  the  development  of  the  ven- 
geance. The  history  of  Dantes's  youth  was  to  have 
been  brought  in  by  way  of  narration.  In  fact,  the 
Roman  chapters  had  been  written  when  Maquet's 
advice  was  enlisted.  It  was  he  who  pointed  out  that 
the  early  part — Marseilles,  the  Chateau  dTf,  the 
communicating  dungeons,  and  the  Abbe  Faria — ^was  the 
most  interesting  period  of  the  hero's  life.  Dumas  was 
persuaded,  and  in  order  to  ensure  an  accuracy  for  which 
the  literary  Pilgrim  of  to-day,  following  the  trail,  has 
reason  to  be  grateful,  he  journeyed  south  in  order  to 
refresh  his  memory  of  the  streets  of  Marseilles,  and  the 
physical  aspect  of  the  Chateau  d'If.     It  was  probably 


MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS  263 

Maquet*s  most  important  contribution  to  the  fame  of 
the  "Maison  Alexandre  Dumas  et  Cie."  He  was  the 
unwearied  rummager  of  documents.  Dumas  without 
Maquet  would  still  have  been  Dumas;  whereas  Maquet 
without  Dumas,  as  was  proven  when  he  tried  to  play  a 
lone  hand,  would  have  been  nobody.  And  that  despite 
the  story  that  Dumas,  his  attention  called  to  an  his- 
torical error  in  the  "Chevalier  d'Harmenthal,"  ex- 
claimed: *' The  devil!  I  have  not  read  it.  Let  me  see; 
who  was  it  wrote  that  for  me?  Why,  that  rascal  Au- 
guste.     Je  lui  laverai  la  tete!" 

With  Marseilles  is  associated  the  name  of  Emile  Zola. 
Before  Emile's  birth,  his  father,  an  Italian,  had  settled 
there,  and  had  planned  extensive  port  improvements 
that  were  discarded  in  favour  of  the  present  Bassin  de 
la  Joliette.  About  the  time  that  the  Count  of  Monte 
Cristo  was  paying  his  last  visits  to  the  city  the  elder 
Zola  was  practising  his  profession  of  civil  engineer  on 
the  Cannebiere.  Emile,  in  his  youth,  having  failed  in 
certain  scholastic  examinations  in  Paris,  tried  those 
of  Marseilles,  but  with  even  more  humiliating  results. 
During  the  War  of  1870  he  was  virtually  adrift  in  Mar- 
seilles, there  running  for  a  short  time  a  war  journal  which 
was  called  La  Marseillaise.  In  fiction  he  made  use  of 
the  city  as  the  background  of  one  of  his  poorest  books, 
**Les  Mysteres  de  Marseilles." 

To  recall  by  brief  mention  a  dozen  novels  of  varying 
importance,  or  unimportance,  associated  with  the 
Riviera.  Monte  Carlo  went  into  the  making  of  W.  J. 
Locke's  "Septimus."  Some  of  the  most  entertaining 
chapters  of  that  "best  seller"  of  fifteen  or  so  years  ago, 


264       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

"The  Lightning  Conductor'*  of  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Wil- 
liamson, wound — through  the  medium  of  motor-car 
construction  now  ridiculously  archaic,  round  the  far  in- 
reaching  bays  of  the  Cote  d'Azur.  Readers  seeking 
light  amusement  with  a  thrill  found  it  in  B.  E.  Steven- 
son's "The  Destroyer,"  which  revolved  about  the  de- 
struction of  the  battleship  La  Liherte,  in  the  harbour 
of  Toulon.  The  Riviera  was  in  Felix  Gras's  "The  Reds 
of  the  Midi";  in  Maarten  Maarten's  "Dorothea";  in 
Paul  J.  L.  Heyse's  "La  Marchesa";  in  W.  H.  Halleck's 
"A  Romance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century."  Then  there 
was  Archibald  Clavering  Gunter's  "Mr.  Barnes  of 
New  York."  Marseilles  was  in  that  yarn,  and  Nice, 
and  Monte  Carlo,  to  which  the  highly  coloured  villain. 
Count  Musso,  came  as  "Satan  entering  paradise";  and 
the  narrative  carried  the  irrepressible  hero  in  approved 
swashbuckling  fashion  across  the  Mediterranean  to 
rescue  Miss  Anstruther  in  the  nick  of  time. 

Of  all  the  spots  of  the  Riviera — Marseilles  properly 
speaking  does  not  belong  there — the  Pilgrim  likes  Cannes 
the  best,  and  holds  it  to  be  the  most  beautiful.  Its 
first  literary  shadow  is  that  of  Guy  de  Maupassant. 
To  this  day  there  juts  into  the  sea,  from  the  Promenade 
de  la  Croisette  the  Maupassant  "debarcadere,"  by 
which  the  novelist  made  his  way  to  the  deck  of 
his  yacht,  the  Bel-Ami;  and  appropriately  Cannes 
played  its  part  in  the  story  of  the  same  name.  There 
George  Duroy  hurried  in  response  to  the  summons  of 
Mme.  Forestier,  and  there,  by  the  death  bed,  the  un- 
spoken and  unhallowed  troth  was  plighted.  It  was  in 
Cannes  that  the  clouds  began  to  gather  for  the  last  time 


MEDITERRANEAN  WATERS  265 

about  the  head  of  Maupassant  himself.  To  quote  from 
the  story  of  his  valet,  Francois:  "We  go  out  to  sea  one 
morning  by  a  stiff  east  wind,  and  in  the  afternoon  the 
Bel-Ami  finds  his  friend  the  Ville  de  Marseille  again 
near  the  Cannes  jetty,  where  my  master  lands.  He 
follows  the  shore  alongside  the  pleasure  boats  moored 
near  the  beach,  which  resemble  a  town  of  little  white 
houses.  Their  masts  spring  up  like  miniature  spires; 
they  might  be  chimneys.  .  .  .  My  master  still 
walks  along  the  beach,  and  just  before  the  baths,  his 
figure  disappears  in  a  garden,  bordering  the  Croisette 
road,  of  a  villa  with  gilt  balconies  in  a  nest  of  green. 
I  can  still  see  the  illustrious  author  putting  his  hand  on 
the  bannister  and  climbing  toward  the  low  story,  from 
which  we  can  see  the  horizon.  He  was  going  to  revisit 
the  lady  of  the  pearl-gray  dress,  always  so  calm,  so 
silent,  so  enigmatical." 


XVIII.   WHERE   THE  WALL  OF  STEEL  HELD 

In  Flanders  Field — The  Heritage  of  Disaster — The  Fiction 
of  the  Young  Republic — The  Napoleonic  Era — The  War  of 
1870 — The  Great  Conflict. 

IN  FLANDERS  field  the  poppies  grow. 
At  the  time  that  this  chapter  was  first  projected 
the  great  shadow  still  was  heavy  upon  the  world. 
Thirty-five  miles  from  the  old  Paris  fortifications  that 
have  appeared  so  often  in  the  course  of  this  narrative — 
if  it  may  be  so  called — were  the  hosts  in  field  gray.  By 
ten  thousand  a  day  the  soldiers  of  the  great  republic 
of  the  western  world  were  disembarking  in  French  ports. 
But  was  it  enough?  Could  they  be  a  factor  in  the 
struggle  to  come,  a  sufficient  aid  in  averting  the  great 
stroke  designed  to  destroy  the  armies  of  France  and 
England  and  impose  upon  the  world  a  German  peace? 
With  hearts  heavy,  but  resolute,  we  watched  and  waited. 
Then  came  the  night,  the  memorable  night  of  July 
17-18  when  Marshal  Foch  gave  the  word,  and  through 
the  shell-scarred  forest  seventy  thousand  men  in  Amer- 
ican khaki  and  French  horizon-blue  moved  swiftly  and 
silently  to  strike  at  dawn  the  German  right  flank,  and 
crush  it  by  the  blow  that  proved  to  be  the  beginning  of 
the  end.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  that  those  who  died 
did  not  die  in  vain.  Yet  the  sublime  pity  of  it  all  is  that 
it  was  denied  them  to  live  to  see  with  mortal  eyes  the 
fruit  of  their  sacrifice. 

266 


WHERE  THE  WALL  OF  STEEL  HELD    267 

In  Flanders  field  the  poppies  grow. 

Nor  is  it  merely  a  matter  of  those  who  gave  their  lives 
in  the  anguish  of  the  great  struggle.  Across  even  the 
joyous  pages  of  many  of  the  Frenchmen  who  wrote  in 
the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  is  a 
shadow,  faint,  yet  clearly  perceptible.  It  is  the  shadow 
of  the  sadness  locked  up  in  the  caverns  of  their  hearts, 
the  sadness  of  men  who  did  not  need  the  injunction  of 
Gambetta  "never  to  talk,  but  never  to  forget.'*  Some- 
thing of  the  shock  of  the  military  disaster  and  national 
humiliation  of  1870,  something  of  the  bitterness  of 
VAnnee  Terrible  they  carried  to  the  tomb.  Daudet 
could  write  in  a  gale  of  gayety  of  the  ludicrous  defence 
of  Tarascon.  But  recall  "Petit  Soldat,'*  and  "La 
Demiere  Classe,"  and  old  Colonel  Jouve  of  "Le  Siege 
de  Berlin,"  who  perhaps,  from  somewhere  beyond  the 
stars,  sees  the  Strasbourg  statue  in  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde  stripped  of  its  mourning  wreaths.  Behind 
the  laughter  there  was  ever  the  heartache.  Mau- 
passant's mordant  irony  in  some  of  his  short  stories  of 
the  Franco-Prussian  War  was  so  cruel  that  there  were 
readers  inclined  to  question  his  patriotism.  Yet  this 
was  the  man  who,  when  the  black  night  of  madness  was 
closing  in  upon  him,  feverishly  fancied  that  France  was 
once  more  being  invaded,  and  made  his  servant  swear 
to  follow  him  to  help  defend  the  eastern  frontier. 

It  is  the  same  region  that  witnessed  the  response  of 
the  RepubHcan  armies  to  the  call  of  Rouget  de  Lisle, 

Entendez-vous,  dans  les  campagnes, 
Mugir  ces  feroces  soldats? 


268       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

and  the  elan  that  broke  the  Prussian  Guard  at  Valmy; 
that  saw  the  disorganized  and  badly  generalled  troops 
of  the  Second  Empire  crumble  before  the  machine- 
like advance  of  Helmuth  Von  Moltke;  that  knew  the 
spirit  of  fortitude  and  self-sacrifice  that  enabled  the 
Wall  of  Steel  to  hold  during  the  four  terrible  years  that 
began  on  August  i,  1914.  For  centuries  to  come  novel- 
ists are  likely  to  go  on  building  plots  in  which  the 
Great  War  is  involved  and  finding  backgrounds  some- 
where along  the  battle  line  that  extended  from  the 
Channel  to  Switzerland.  But  the  concern  here  is  not 
with  those  books  of  the  future,  but  with  the  books  that 
have  already  been  written. 

For  the  first-named  period  one  can  hardly  do  better 
than  turn  to  the  works  that  resulted  from  that  curious 
collaboration  known  as  Erckmann-Chatrian.  The 
spirit  of  Alsace,  of  the  young  republic,  and  of  the  suc- 
ceeding Napoleonic  period  is  in  the  novels  on  which 
Emile  Erckmann  and  Alexandre  Chatrian  wrought 
together  for  so  many  years.  There  are,  for  example: 
"Madame  Therese,"  a  tale  of  a  vivandiere  and  the 
years  1792  and  1793;  "Histoire  d'un  Consent  de  1813" 
(translated  as  "The  Conscript")  and  its  sequel, 
"Waterloo";  "Le  Blocus,"  dealing  with  the  invasion  of 
France  by  the  Allies  in  18 14;  and  "Histoire  d'un  Pay- 
san,"  which  runs  to  several  volumes,  carrying  all  the 
way  from  1789  to  181 5.  In  "Waterloo"  there  is  a 
famous  account  of  the  great  Flanders  battle  which  has 
been  described  in  fiction  by  so  many  pens;  for  example, 
Victor  Hugo,  in  "Les  Miserables";  Stendhal,  in  "La 
Chartreuse  de  Parme";   and  Conan  Doyle  in  "The 


WHERE  THE  WALL  OF  STEEL  HELD    269 

Great  Shadow."  Then,  for  the  reflection  of  the  Na- 
poleonic spirit  as  it  was  in  1808,  when  the  great  em- 
peror, with  all  Europe  crouching  at  his  feet,  was  at  his 
apogee,  there  are  the  tales  written  fifteen  years  or  so 
ago  by  Georges  d'Esparbes,  and  collected  under  the 
title  **La  Legende  de  I'Aigle."  Adolphe  Brisson  called 
d'Esparbes  "the  poet  of  the  Empire,"  and  wrote  of  "La 
Legende  de  I'Aigle": 

The  Walhalla  of  war  opens,  and  its  mustered  heroes  are  incar- 
nated in  new  generations  of  valour.  And  after  the  blackening  flame 
has  died  out,  in  the  crash  of  a  ruined  country  and  the  embers  of  a 
continent  in  conflagration,  a  phantom  passes,  alternately  a  grue- 
some spectre  and  a  prophetic  leader,  the  rush  of  whose  vision  makes 
men  breathless  with  awe,  and  enkindles  the  immortality  of  courage. 

The  War  of  1870  has  been  depicted  on  a  great  canvas 
in  Zola's  "La  Debacle,"  and  in  novels  by  Paul  and 
Victor  Marguerite.  In  briefer  form,  but  no  less  poig- 
nant in  tragedy,  are  such  tales  as  Maupassant's  "Boule- 
de-Suif"  and  "Un  Duel,"  a  dozen  conies  of  Alphonse 
Daudet,  and  a  charming  but  apparently  forgotten  book 
by  Jules  Claretie:  "Brichanteau,"  the  story  of  an  old 
actor.  On  stages  of  Paris  and  of  provincial  towns 
Brichanteau  had  often  played  in  versions  of  "The 
Musketeers,"  and  during  the  Siege  there  came  to  him 
the  glorious  idea  of  imitating  their  adventures  in  prac- 
tical action,  of  kidnapping  the  King  of  Prussia  and 
holding  him  as  ransom  to  ensure  the  integrity  of  French 
soil.  But  against  Brichanteau  the  face  of  history  was 
set,  as  it  had  been  set  against  Athos,  Porthos,  Aramis, 


270       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

and  D'Artagnan  when  they  would  have  saved  the  head 
of  Charles  I. 

In  the  chapter:  "At  Landrecies,"  of  "An  Inland  Voy- 
age," Stevenson  wrote  in  a  prophetic  vein: 

In  all  garrison  towns,  guard  calls,  and  reveilles,  and  such  like, 
make  a  fine  romantic  interlude  in  civic  business.  Bugles,  and  drums, 
and  fifes  are  of  themselves  most  excellent  things  in  nature,  and  when 
they  carry  the  mind  to  marching  armies  and  the  picturesque  vicis- 
situdes of  war  they  stir  up  something  proud  in  the  heart.  But  in 
the  shadow  of  a  town  like  Landrecies,  with  little  else  moving,  these 
points  of  war  make  a  proportionate  commotion.  Indeed,  they  were 
the  only  things  to  remember.  It  was  just  the  place  to  hear  the 
round  going  by  at  night,  with  the  solid  tramp  of  men  marching,  and 
the  startling  reverberations  of  the  drum.  It  reminded  you  that 
even  this  place  was  a  point  in  the  great  warfaring  system  of  Europe, 
and  might  on  some  future  day  be  ringed  about  with  cannon  smoke 
and  thunder,  and  make  itself  a  hame  among  strong  towns. 

The  fiction  of  the  recent  war.  The  surface  has 
hardly  been  scratched,  yet  a  hundred  tales,  in  a  score 
of  moods,  and  in  various  languages  spring  instantly  to 
mind.  There  is  "The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 
Iypse"of  theSpaniard,BlascoIbaiiez,with  its  marvellous 
picture  of  the  tide  of  German  invasion  rolling  up  to  the 
Marne,  and  then  reeling  back  in  shattered  defeat. 
There  are  the  questionable  but  undeniably  powerful 
"Le  Feu"  of  Henri  Barbusse;  and  Rene  Benjamin's 
"Gaspard"  and  "Le  Major  Pipe  et  Son  Frere";  and 
Paul  Bourget's  "The  Night  Cometh";  and  Rene  Bois- 
leve's  "Tu  n'est  Plus  Rien";  and  Georges  Lafond's  "La 
Mitrailleuse."  There  is  the  "Croire"  of  Andre  Fri- 
bourg,  translated  as  "The  Flaming  Crucible."    There 


WHERE  THE  WALL  OF  STEEL  HELD    271 

is  the  collection  of  short  stories  that  bears  the  English 
title:  "Tales  of  War  Time  France,"  which  introduces, 
among  others:  Alfred  Machard,  Maurice  Level,  Fred- 
eric Boutet,  Pierre  Mille,  Madame  Lucie  Delarue- 
Madrus,  Rene  Benjamin,  and  Jean  Aicard.  Two  stories 
of  this  collection  that  are  likely  to  endure  are  "Under 
Ether,"  with  a  definite  setting  before  St.  Quentin,  and 
"After  the  War,"  both  by  Level.  Most  of  the  writers 
mentioned  have  come  to  the  fore  with  the  war. 

But  it  has  not  been  France's  war  alone.  The  men 
and  women  of  the  pen,  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  have  been  keenly  alive  to  its  responsibilities  and 
its  opportunities.  Although  the  story  is  for  the  most 
part  played  out  in  English  village  lanes  beyond  the 
sound  of  the  gun  roar,  the  flaming  battle  front  is  every- 
where reflected  in  the  pages  of  H.  G.  Wells's  "Mr. 
Britling  Sees  It  Through."  W.  J,  Locke's  "The  Rough 
Road"  deals  with  towns  of  Flanders  or  Picardy  where 
the  presence  of  British  soldiery  transformed  the  Place 
de  la  Fontaine  into  Holbom  Circus,  the  Grande  Rue 
into  Piccadilly,  and  the  Rue  Feuillemaisnil  into  Regent 
Street.  There  are  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward's  "Missing"; 
and  Snaith's  "The  Coming,"  and  Walpole's  "The  Dark 
Forest";  and  St.  John  Irvine's  "Changing  Winds"  and 
Lord  Dunsany's  "Tales  of  War,"  and  two  score  more. 

American  fiction.  The  region  about  Soissons  is  in 
Richard  Harding  Davis's  stirring  "Somewhere  in 
France,"  and  two  miles  from  Soissons  is  the  little  town  of 
Crouy,  which  figured  in  Dorothy  Canfield's  "Home 
Fires  in  France."  There  are  Edith  Wharton's  "The 
Mame,"   and   Eleanor  Atkinson's  "Poilu;  a  Dog  of 


272       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Roubaix";  and  Louis  Joseph  Vance's  "The  False  Faces, " 
began  on  the  fighting  line;  and  the  Canadian,  Ralph  Con- 
nor, has  written:  "The  Sky  Pilot  in  No  Man's  Land." 
Tales  of  heroic  sacrifice  for  the  most  part,  and  of  the 
land  under  the  blight,  but  with  an  underlying  note  of 
resolute  hope  and  of  confidence  in  the  eventual  victory. 

Le  jour  de  gloire  est  arrive. 


XIX.  THE  OLD-WORLD  OPEN  ROAD 

The  Trail  of  the  Musketeers — The  Journey  to  England — 
Seventeenth-century  Inn  Names — Crossing  the  Channel — Old- 
World  Hostelries — Wine  and  Water — Proverbs  for  Travellers — 
The  Cost  of  Travel. 

THERE  is  always  difference  of  opinion.  In  the 
course  of  this  book  there  is  quotation  from  Leon- 
ard Merrick  in  which  the  creator  of  Tricotrin 
speaks  of  the  saddening  impression  derived  from  meet- 
ing the  Musketeers  again  in  their  middle-age  and  "Vi^gt 
Ans  Apres."  Of  another  mind  was  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson.  *'Upon  the  crowded  noisy  life  of  the  long 
tale  evening  gradually  falls;  and  the  lights  are  extin- 
guished, and  the  heroes  pass  away  one  by  one.  One  by 
one  they  go,  and  not  a  regret  embitters  their  depar- 
ture. .  .  .  Ah,  if  only  when  these  hours  of  the  long 
shadows  fall  for  us  in  reality  and  not  in  figure,  we  may 
hope  to  face  them  with  a  mind  as  quiet!  The  siege 
guns  are  firing  on  the  Dutch  frontier;  and  I  must  say 
adieu  for  the  fifth  time  to  my  old  comrade  fallen  on  the 
field  of  glory.  Adieu — rather  au  revoir!  Yet  a  sixth 
time,  dearest  D'Artagnan,  we  shall  kidnap  Monk  and 
take  horse  together  for  Belle-Isle."  Is  the  reader  of 
the  party  of  Stevenson  or  the  party  of  Merrick?  Is 
the  old-world  open  road  best  suggested  to  him  by  the 
youth  of  twenty,  astride  of  his  Rosinante,  or  by  the 

273 


274       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

grizzled,  iron  veteran  who  figures  In  the  pages  of  the 
"Vicomte  de  Bragelonne?" 

This  has  been  the  rambUng  record  of  many  rambling 
pilgrimages.  But  there  is  one  pilgrimage,  perhaps  the 
best  of  all,  which  the  author  has  not  made,  except  in 
pleasant  day  dreams.  If  a  kindly  fate  sometime  brings 
these  day  dreams  to  reality  he  will  find  himself  by  the 
Porte  Saint-Denis  in  Paris  at  the  steering  wheel  of  a 
purring,  high-powered  motor  car,  about  to  follow  (the 
Pilgrim  is  of  the  party  of  Merrick)  the  old-world  open 
road  over  the  route  of  the  most  spirited  journey  in  all 
fiction,  that  made  by  D'Artagnan,  Athos,  Porthos,  and 
Aramis,  to  frustrate  the  scheming  of  the  great  Cardinal 
and  to  save  the  honour  of  Anne  of  Austria.  Certain 
sceptics  will  probably  be  inclined  to  take  exception  to 
the  idea  of  the  motor  car,  decrying  any  sort  of  speed  as 
iconoclastic,  contending  that  the  romance  and  open 
road  of  the  old  world  demand  a  lagging  gait.  A  lagging 
gait  indeed!  What  but  the  motor  car  could  have  kept 
pace  with  those  iron  horsemen?  "Look  at  those  clouds 
which  flit  across  the  sky,"  Aramis  told  Fouquet  in  the 
twilight  tale  that  Stevenson  loved  best,  "  at  those  swal- 
lows that  cut  the  air.  D'Artagnan  moves  more  quickly 
than  the  cloud  or  the  bird;  d'Artagnan  is  the  wind  which 
carries  them." 

To  attempt  to  follow  in  reality  that  first  journey  of 
the  Musketeers  would  be  to  discover  a  France  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  France  of  1628,  where  the  all-powerful 
Richelieu  planted  his  minions  at  every  turn.  So 
the  pilgrimage  is  one  that  may  with  satisfaction  be 
made  at  home,  beyond  the  magic  door,  with  a  seven- 


THE  OLD-WORLD  OPEN  ROAD        275 

teenth-century  map,  and  half  a  score  of  volumes  dealing 
with  the  old-world  open  road  and  conditions  of  travel 
and  bygone  inns  as  companions.  Beyond  the  old 
barrier,  leaving  behind  the  Paris  of  narrow,  winding 
streets,  the  route  is  plain.  All  night  the  four  galloped, 
arriving  at  eight  in  the  morning  at  Chantilly  where 
they  descended  at  the  inn  known  as  the  "Grand  Saint- 
Martin.  "There  was  encountered  the  stranger  who 
selected  the  conspicuous  Porthos  as  the  leader  of  the  ex- 
pedition and  delayed  him  for  the  purposes  of  a  duel.  The 
others,  proceeding,  stopped  for  two  hours  at  Beauvais 
to  rest  their  horses  and  wait  for  Porthos.  A  league 
beyond  Beauvais  they  met  the  group  of  pretended  work- 
men. Aramis,  wounded  in  the  brawl,  was  left  to  recover 
Crevecoeur.  At  Amiens,  at  the  inn  of  the  "Golden 
Lily,"  Athos  was  arrested  on  a  trumped-up  charge  of 
passing  counterfeit  money,  and  D*Artagnan  galloped 
on  alone  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  mission,  a  Re- 
turning from  England,  the  Gascon  followed  an  entirely 
different  route.  In  accordance  with  Buckingham's 
directions  he  landed  at  Saint-Valery,  where  he  went  to 
an  inn  without  name  or  sign,  a  sailor's  den  by  the  water- 
side, where  he  uttered  the  word  "Forward."  Thence 
to  Blagny  and  to  Neuchatel,  where  at  the  "Herse  d'Or" 
(the  Golden  Harrow)  the  password  provided  him  with 
a  fresh  horse.  He  was  instructed  to  travel  in  the  gen- 
eral direction  of  Rouen,  but  to  leave  the  city  on  his 
right,  and  to  go  to  Ecouis,  there  to  descend  at  the  only 
inn  of  the  town,  the  "Ecu  d'Or."  From  Ecouis  he 
proceeded  to  Pontoise  and  then  on  to  Paris. 
In  the  inn  names  associated  with  the  journey  there 


276       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Is  the  real  seventeenth-century  ring.  According  to 
E.  S.  Bates's  "Touring  in  1600" — 1600  was  twenty- 
five  years  before  the  D'Artagnan  of  Dumas  came  upon 
the  scene  of  fiction — in  a  fist  of  three  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  different  inns  mentioned  by  travellers,  the 
** Crown"  occurred  most  frequently  (thirty-two  times), 
mainly  as  a  result  of  *'Ecu  de  France"  being  so  favourite 
a  name  in  France.  "White  Horses"  and  "Golden 
Lions"  seemed  to  be  nearly  as  popular.  Of  ecclesiasti- 
cal signs  the  "Cross"  occurred  twenty-two  times,  eleven 
of  which  were  "White";  the  "Three  Kings,"  fourteen 
times;  'and  the  "Red  Hat,"  or  its  equivalents,  the 
"Cardinal's  Hat"  or  the  "Cardinal"  (seven);  but  of 
saints  there  were  no  more  than  twenty-five  altogether, 
including  five  of  "Our  Lady."  About  the  time  of  the 
active  youth  of  D'Artagnan  there  was  coming  in  a  new 
fashion,  apparently  set  by  Paris,  of  naming  inns.  That 
was  for  the  purpose  of  appealing  to  a  special  clientele. 
Thus  the  "Ville  de  Brissac"  catered  to  Protestants; 
the  "Ville  de  Hambourg"  to  Germans;  while  at  Calais 
the  "Petit  Saint- Jean'*  was  a  meeting  place  for 
Scotchmen. 

The  Channel  crossing  figures  prominently  in  all  the 
books  deaUng  with  the  Musketeers.  There  was  D'Artag- 
nan's  visit  to  Buckingham  in  "Les  Trois  Mousque- 
taires";  the  journey  to  England  made  by  the  four  in  the 
hope  of  saving  Charles  the  First;  and  the  return,  by 
means  of  the  felucca  that  was  blown  up  and  the  open 
boat.  And  in  "Le  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,"  the  trip 
made  by  Athos,  Comte  de  la  Fere,  to  find  the  buried 
million,  and  that  of  D'Artagnan,  as  a  result  of  which  he 


THE  OLD-WORLD  OPEN  ROAD        277 

succeeded  in  kidnapping  Monk  and  transporting  him 
to  Holland  in  a  box.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the 
passage  from  Calais  to  Dover  was  far  from  being  the 
light  matter  of  the  acquaintance  of  recent  generations. 
In  1610  two  ambassadors  waited  at  Calais  fourteen 
days  before  they  could  make  a  start,  and  making  a  start 
by  no  means  impHed  arriving — at  least,  not  at  Dover. 
One  traveller,  of  whom  Mr.  Bates  tells,  after  a  most 
unhappy  night,  found  himself  at  Nieuport  the  next 
morning,  and  had  to  wait  three  days  before  another 
try  could  be  made.  Another,  who  had  already  sailed  from 
Boulogne — after  having  waited  six  hours  for  the  tide, 
accomplished  two  leagues,  had  been  becalmed  for  nine 
or  ten  hours,  returned  to  Boulogne  by  rowboat,  and 
posted  to  Calais — found  no  wind  to  take  him  across  there, 
and  had  to  charter  another  row-boat  at  sunset  on  Fri- 
day, reaching  Dover  on  Monday  between  four  and  five 
in  the  morning.  Finishing  the  crossing  by  row-boat 
was  a  very  common  experience  because  of  the  state 
of  the  harbours.  Calais  was  the  better  of  the  two,  yet 
it  sometimes  happened  that  passengers  had  to  be  carried 
ashore  one  hundred  yards  or  more  because  not  even 
boats  could  approach.  Even  a  hundred  years  after  the 
heroes  of  Dumas  had  passed  away  the  journey  was  still 
one  of  hardship.  "The  Gentleman's  Guide  in  His  Tour 
through  France,"  published  in  1770,  relates  that  the 
vessels  were  small,  dirty,  and  ill-appointed,  the  passage 
a  torment,  and,  if  strong  head  winds  blew,  impossible. 
Some  travellers  went  all  the  w^y  by  sea  from  London 
to  the  Continent.  "Upon  Change  every  day  is  to  be 
met  with  the  master  of  a  French  trader;  whose  price  to 


278       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Calais,  Dunkirk,  or  Boulogne  is  only  a  guinea  each  passen- 
ger: the  passage  is  commonly  made  in  sixteen  or  twenty 
hours:  this  scheme  is  much  more  commendable  than  go- 
ing to  Dover;  where,  should  you  chance  to  be  wind- 
bound,  it  will  cost  you  at  least  half  a  guinea  a  day.'* 

At  Calais,  Dumas's  Joseph  Balsamo  and  the  British 
characters  of  Smollett  if  they  happened  to  be  Paris 
bound,  and  the  hero  of  Sterne's  "Sentimental  Journey," 
all  probably  stayed  at  Dessein's,  whose  praises  Thack- 
eray was  later  to  sing.  That  inn — according  to  the 
eighteenth  century  "An  Essay  to  Direct  and  Extend  the 
Inquiries  of  Patriotic  Travellers"  (there  were  long- 
winded  titles  in  those  days) — was  one  of  the  most  exten- 
sive in  Europe,  "with  squares,  gardens,  shops  of  all 
kinds,  work-shops,  and  a  handsome  theatre."  The 
same  authority  speaks  of  an  inn  at  Chalons,  with  rooms, 
"furnished  throughout  with  silk  and  damask,  the  very 
linings  of  the  rooms  and  bedcovers  not  excepted." 
Young,  in  his  "Travels  in  France,"  proclaimed  the 
Hotel  Henri  IV  at  Nantes  the  "finest  inn  in  Europe," 
saying:  "it  cost  400,cxx)  liv.  furnished,  and  is  let  at 
14,000  liv.  per  ann.,  with  no  rent  for  the  first  year.  It 
contains  sixty  beds  for  masters  and  twenty-five  stalls 
for  horses.  Some  of  the  apartments  of  two  rooms, 
very  neat,  are  6  liv.  a  day;  one  good  3  liv.,  but  for  mer- 
chants 5  liv.  per  diem  for  dinner,  supper,  wine  and  cham- 
ber." On  the  other  hand.  Young  recorded  that  at 
Moulins,  in  the  Loire  region,  he  went  to  the  "Beauti- 
ful Image"  but  found  it  so  bad  that  he  left  it  and  went 
to  the  "Golden  Lion"  which  was  worse;  and  that  at 
Saint-Girons,  in  the  Basses-Pyrenees,  a  town  of  four 


THE  OLD-WORLD  OPEN  ROAD         279 

or  five  thousand  inhabitants,  he  was  forced  to  put  up  at 
a  public-house  undeserving  the  name  of  inn.  "A 
wretched  hag,  the  demon  of  beastliness,  presides  there. 
I  laid,  not  rested,  in  a  chamber  over  a  stable.  It  could 
give  me  but  two  stale  eggs.  But  the  inns  all  the  way 
from  Nimes  are  wretched,  except  at  Lodeve,  Ganges, 
Carcassonne,  and  Mirepoix." 

To  revert  to  the  days  of  the  Musketeers.  "Les  Voya- 
geurs  en  France"  tells  of  a  traveller,  who,  in  163 1,  went 
through  the  country  on  foot  and  on  horseback;  often 
going  out  of  the  beaten  track.  He  noted:  *' In  certain 
villages,  in  certain  towns  even  in  the  centre  of  France, 
the  inns  lack  everything.  One  can  hardly  find  bread 
and  a  fire.  Beds  are  wanting.  The  Musketeers,  thanks 
perhaps  to  the  length  of  their  swords,  usually  managed 
to  command  material  hospitality,  especially  in  the  mat- 
ter of  wine.  We  are  astonished  at  the  extent  of  the 
potations  of  Athos,  above  all  at  that  debauch  at  the 
"Golden  Lily"  of  Amiens,  when  the  wine  fumes  moved 
him  to  the  narration  of  the  story  of  his  marriage  in  early 
life  to  the  woman  so  soon  to  reappear  upon  the  scene  as 
Milady,  Countess  de  Winter.  Remember,  in  the  con- 
nection, that  outside  of  Spain  and  Turkey,  Europeans 
of  the  period  thought  water  unhealthy,  a  French  inn 
breakfast  consisted  of  a  glass  of  wine  and  just  a  mouth- 
ful of  bread,  and  travellers,  as  often  as  not,  cleaned 
their  teeth  with  wine.  Nor  is  there  anything  astonish- 
ing in  the  care  with  which  D'Artagnan,  or  Chicot  the 
Jester  at  an  earlier  period  examined  their  surroundings 
when  they  happened  to  be  spending  the  night  at  a 
strange    inn.    Among   the   proverbs    impressed    upon 


28o       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

persons  about  to  travel  in  the  seventeenth  century  was 
one:  "In  an  inn  bedroom  which  contains  big  pictures, 
look  behind  the  latter  to  see  if  they  do  not  conceal  a 
secret  door,  or  a  window." 

The  good  Dumas  loved  the  five-franc  piece,  loved 
it  for  the  pleasure  of  scattering  it  to  the  four  winds. 
Consequently  the  Musketeers  of  his  fancy  were  gener- 
ously endowed  with  spendthrift  qualities,  and  were  con- 
tinually confronted  with  the  problem  of  finding  money 
for  new  equipment  or  for  the  expenses  of  a  projected 
journey.  D'Artagnan  did  not  disdain  graciously  to 
accept  a  roll  of  gold  from  the  hand  of  Louis  XIII.  The 
purchasing  power  of  money  in  the  early  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century  may  be  roughly  estimated  as  ten 
times  that  of  the  present  day,  or  five  times  that  of  five 
or  six  years  ago.  Yet  despite  this  disparity  the  cost 
of  travel  was  greater  than  it  is  now  in  the  times  of  the 
railways.  Following  the  open  road  by  coach,  horse 
hire  alone  cost  from  three  to  ten  sous  a  mile;  there  were 
plenty  of  highway  tolls;  and  in  crossing  a  ferry  the 
ferryman  occasionally  made  the  passengers  pay  what- 
ever he  pleased  by  collecting  fares  in  the  middle  of  the 
river.  It  is  quite  unlikely,  however,  that  this  particular 
form  of  extortion  was  ever  practised  at  the  expense  of 
Messieurs  les  Mousquetaires. 


XX.  MY  OLD  EUROPE 

MY  OLD  Europe!  Shall  I  ever  know  it  again  as 
I  first  knew  it  in  the  morning  of  life  ?  And  yet, 
as  I  write,  there  comes  to  mind  a  certain  pas- 
sage in  the  **  Peter  Ibbetson'*  of  George  Du  Maurier,  a 
passage  about  "the  faint,  scarcely  perceptible  ghost-like 
suspicion  of  a  scent — a  mere  nostalgic  fancy,  compound, 
generic,  and  all-embracing."  The  eyes  may  never 
see  the  old  Europe  more  as  they  saw  it  once,  but  a  single 
whifF  of  the  soft  coal  which  most  nostrils  find  so  dis- 
tasteful, and  the  years  drop  away,  and  there  is  an  Amer- 
ican boy  of  eight,  who  had  hitherto  known  no  coal 
smell  other  than  that  of  anthracite,  making  his  way 
down  the  gang  plank  from  the  deck  of  the  old  Guion 
Liner  Wyoming  after  a  thirteen-day  sea  journey,  to  the 
wharves  and  streets  and  the  murky,  bituminous  laden 
air  of  Liverpool.  "Were  the  two  boys,  riding  by  in  a 
carriage  of  such  splendid  proportions.  Princes?"  That 
was  his  first  eager  old-world  question.  He  had  heard 
and  read  of  princes  in  his  own  democratic  land,  and  the 
word  appealed  vividly  to  the  imagination. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  the  acquaintance,  renewed 
almost  every  year  thereafter  during  the  impressionable 
teens.  It  was  a  Europe  of  startling  innovations,  of 
new  and  iconoclastic  ideals,  of  radical  departures  from 
the  customs  of  the  "good  old  times"  to  those  who 

281 


282       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

viewed  it  through  the  eyes  of  maturity.  But  it  was  a 
Europe  very  different  from  the  one  we  contemplate  in 
Anno  Domini  1919,  the  one  which  we  are  all  hoping  to 
revisit  ere  many  years  have  passed,  the  one  which  the 
writer  of  these  lines  last  saw  in  its  stress  and  turmoil  a 
brief  two  years  ago. 

If  in  the  highly  commendable  resolution  to  eschew 
for  the  rest  of  our  lives  everything  of  late  enemy  origin 
a  single  exception  should  be  made,  the  writer's  impulse 
would  be  to  speak  for  those  famihar  red-bound  books, 
to  which  several  generations  of  Americans  have  gone 
about  clinging,  that  bear  the  imprint  of  a  publishing 
house  of  Leipsic.  Undoubtedly  treachery  long  skulked 
behind  the  respectable  name,  and  agents  travelling  for 
the  ostensible  purpose  of  keeping  the  books  "up-to- 
date,"  and  seeing  that  starred  hotels  and  restaurants 
continued  to  deserve  the  distinction  conferred  upon 
them,  were  in  reality  engaged  in  the  more  sinister  busi- 
ness of  selecting  gun  sites  for  Prussian  batteries  in 
Northern  France,  and  making  notes  on  inadequately 
defended  beaches  of  East  Anglia.  But  in  the  matter 
of  original  authorship  it  was  usually  what  might  be 
called  an  Entente  affair.  Englishmen  compiled  the 
books  on  "London  and  Environs,"  "Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,"  "United  States  and  Canada";  Frenchmen 
wrote  those  dealing  with  "Paris,"  "Northern  France," 
"Southern  France,"  and  the  southern  countries. 

Take  up  one  of  those  books  bearing  a  date  of  the 
'eighties  to  realize  the  changes  that  thirty  years  have 
wrought  in  a  Europe  that  we  have  regarded  as  unchang- 
ing.   If  the  book  at  hand  happens  to  deal  with  London, 


MY  OLD  EUROPE  283 

it  is  a  London  without  a  Tube  system,  a  Savoy  Hotel, 
a  Hotel  Cecil,  or  any  of  half  a  dozen  new  and  familiar 
hostelries,  and  the  maps  will  show  old  streets  with 
names  that  recall  Dickens  where  the  broad  Kingsway 
now  runs.  Paris  is  a  Paris  without  an  Eiffel  Tower, 
to  mention  the  first  monument  which  the  travel- 
ler discerns  when  approaching  la  ville  lumiere.  Prep- 
arations for  the  transatlantic  journey  involve  consider- 
ation of  the  merits  of  the  Inman  Line,  the  Guion  Line, 
the  American  Steamship  Company,  the  National 
Steamship  Company,  the  State  Line.  It  is  almost  like 
picking  up  one  of  those  quaint  old-time  guide  books  to 
the  United  States,  embeUished  by  wood  cuts,  in  which 
the  traveller  in  New  York  is  advised  to  stay  at  the 
Astor  House,  or  the  American  Hotel,  opposite  the  City 
Hall  Park;  or  the  United  States  Hotel  in  Fulton  Street, 
which  had  formerly  been  Holt's;  or  Florence's  at  Broad- 
way and  Walker  Street,  described  as  a  "new  and  elegant 
establishment";  and  when,  having  done  with  Man- 
hattan, and  bound  for  Philadelphia,  is  directed  to  em- 
bark at  Battery  Place  on  the  boat  for  South  Amboy, 
thence  continuing  the  journey  over  the  rails  of  the  Cam- 
den and  Amboy. 

But  this  is  the  narrative,  not  of  old  guide  books,  but 
of  early  impressions.  How  curious  those  early  impres- 
sions are!  What  trivial,  inconsequential,  yet  delightful 
associations  the  name  of  a  city  seen  in  the  flush  of  first 
youth  awakens  in  the  memory.  Rome!  I  see  a  toy 
shop  in  a  street  the  name  of  which  is  long  since  for- 
gotten, and  a  window  in  which  were  displayed  boxes 
of  fascinating  lead  soldiers,  shining  in  their  uniforms  of 


284       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Italian  green.  Or  again  I  see  a  bit  of  the  Forum,  or  the 
warm  sunlight  on  the  Palatine  Hill,  or  in  St.  Peter's, 
near  the  Altar,  a  painting  depicting  Saint  Michael  and 
the  Dragon  that  haunted  me  for  months — to  this  day 
I  am  ignorant  of  the  title  of  the  picture  and  the  name  of 
the  painter — or  Michael  Angelo's  "The  Last  Judg^ 
ment"  in  the  Sistine  Chapel.  Venice!  Leaving  the 
railway  station  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  after  a 
night  ride  from  Florence,  the  journey  by  gondola  to 
the  hotel  facing  the  Grand  Canal,  the  quaint  warning 
call  of  the  boatman  when  approaching  the  street  cor- 
ners, and  afterward  the  pigeons  in  the  Piazza  of  St. 
Mark.  Como!  Many-hued  lizards  scampering  over 
the  warm  walls  in  the  sunshine.  Basle!  A  hotel 
known  as  "The  Three  Kings,"  and  again  fascinating 
lead  soldiers,  th  s  time  in  the  uniforms  of  the  Swiss 
Republic.  Geneva!  A  narrow  street  one  block  back 
from  the  lake  front,  where  the  windows  of  the  shops 
glittered  with  snow-covered  toy  chalets. 

In  the  case  of  Rome,  Venice,  and  Como,  those  first 
impressions  have  been  the  only  impressions.  In  re- 
visiting cities  after  the  lapse  of  many  years  there  is  at 
times  something  almost  uncanny.  Take  the  Swiss 
capital  of  Berne.  I  saw  it  first  in  1887  with  the  eyes  of 
thirteen.  For  thirty  years  I  carried  it  in  vivid  memory. 
I  felt  that  my  knowledge  of  it  as  it  actually  was  had 
never  departed.  I  had  but  to  shut  my  eyes  to  see  the 
quaint  streets  with  the  flanking  Lauben,  the  fountains, 
the  curious  clocks,  and  the  winding  river  far  below. 
Above  all  I  had  visualized  the  bear-pit,  where  the  city's 
patron  bruins  roll  in  well-nourished  comfort,  and  gobble 


MY  OLD  EUROPE  285 

the  buns  that  are  tossed  to  them  over  the  raihng  above. 
Then,  in  the  spring  of  1917,  I  saw  Berne  again.  With 
six  other  men  of  the  American  Commission  for  Belgium 
and  the  North  of  France  I  had  been  taken  through  a 
Germany — ^where  eyes  were  shining  with  the  "Hymn 
of  Hate" — apparently  destined  for  detention  somewhere 
in  the  Black  Forest,  But  Berne;  it  was  not  the  same 
city.  Strangest  of  all,  the  bear-pit  was  found  to  be  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river  Aar.  But  there  is  always  the 
city  of  dreams  to  blur  and  confuse  the  memory.  At 
times  I  am  at  a  loss  to  determine  whether  a  street  or  a 
view  has  been  seen  with  eyes  asleep  or  eyes  awake. 
There  are  comers  of  New  York  that  I  know  never  had 
tangible  existence.  There  is  a  wall  of  Paris  which  I 
have  long  sought  in  vain  yet  which  is  perfectly  familiar 
to  me. 

More  mature  impressions,  the  Impressions  of  the 
teens,  were  the  first  impressions  of  the  towns  which, 
during  the  long  years  of  strife,  have  been  flaming  in  the 
reports  from  the  western  battle  front.  Troyes,  Chalons- 
sur-Marne,  Rheims,  Soissons,  Saint-Quentin.  The 
names  conjure  up  in  memory  hotels  built  round  court- 
yards, and  bearing  signs  of  delightful  old-world 
flavour — "The  Red  Lion,"  "The  Lion  of  Flanders," 
"The  Three  Kings,"  "The  Swan,"  "The  Great  Stag," 
"The  Golden  Cross,"  "The  White  Cross."  In  these 
hotels  there  were  little  reading  rooms  with  furniture 
upholstered  in  black  leather,  where  one  found  well 
thumbed  and  carefully  preserved  French  illustrated 
papers  depicting  the  sorrows  of  the  "terrible  year," 
woodcuts  showing  the  harsh  passing  of  the  bearded 


286       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

and  helmeted  Prussians,  and  the  desolated  countryside. 
Then,  ver}'^  early  in  the  morning,  one  was  awakened  by 
a  bugle  call  and  the  sound  of  tramping  feet,  and  looking 
out  the  window,  one  saw  passing  in  the  street  below 
red-trousered  young  soldiers  of  France  on  the  march. 
Not  those  men,  but  the  sons  of  those  men  were  to  hold 
at  Verdun  and  the  Marne.  They  were  not  known  as 
poilus  then;  the  word  had  not  yet  been  found,  or  if 
found,  was  not  in  common  use.  France  loved  them 
as  her  little  piou-pious,  and  there  was  a  gaudy  illus- 
trated paper,  devoted  to  their  interests,  with  the  title, 
Le  Petit  Piou-Piou,  which  to  the  eyes  of  youth  was 
irresistibly  comic. 

Tours  and  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  and,  in  a  word, 
all  of  fair  Touraine,  have  come  to  mean  to  me  in  later 
years  the  associations  of  Honore  de  Balzac,  his  Eugenie 
Grandet,  his  Lily  of  the  Valley,  his  Gaudissart,  his 
Abbe  Birotteau;  or  Scott's  Quentin  Durward  riding,  as 
Stevenson  has  phrased  it,  "midnightly  through  the 
gibbet-and-gypsy-haunted  forest.'*  But  to  the  boy  of 
nine  who  first  saw  Tours  neither  the  name  of  "The  Wiz- 
ard of  the  North"  nor  that  of  the  author  of  the  "Com- 
edie  Humaine"  had  any  meaning.  His  memory  was  of 
certain  good-natured  French  officers  of  the  garrison 
who  were  in  the  habit  of  dining  at  the  hotel,  and  who, 
in  the  garden  courtyard  after  dinner,  permitted  the 
little  American  boy  to  play  with  their  swords,  and 
hlagued  him  in  funny  English,  to  his  delight  and  their 
own.  Then  there  was  a  town  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine, 
a  few  miles  from  Paris,  called  Bougival.  It  was  the 
scene  of  a  tournament  as  spirited  to  the  vision  as  Scott's 


MY  OLD  EUROPE  287 

passage  at  arms  in  the  lists  of  Ashby  de  la  Zouche  was 
later  to  prove  to  the  imagination.  Boats  propelled  by- 
sturdy  rowers  were  the  steeds;  spears  with  cushioned 
pads  at  the  end,  the  weapons.  The  Brian  de  Bois  Guil- 
bert  of  the  Bougival  encounter,  champion  of  cham- 
pions, a  huge  man,  the  redoubtable  butcher  of  La 
Jonchere,  was  dethroned,  tumbled  backward  into  the 
water  by  an  unknown  youth  who,  to  the  amazed  on- 
lookers, seemed  almost  slightly  built.  Like  the  Temp- 
lar, the  butcher  of  La  Jonchere  received  a  second 
chance,  only  to  go  forth  to  a  downfall  even  more  crush- 
ing than  the  first.  This  time  it  was  not  the  stalwart 
Brian,  worsted  but  not  disgraced,  falling  before  the 
lance  of  the  Disinherited  Knight,  but  the  Hospitalier, 
hurled  from  his  saddle  like  a  stone  from  a  catapult. 

Other  memories  of  Bougival.  An  old  inn  on  the 
river  bank,  with  panels  done  in  payment  for  breakfasts 
and  dinners  by  impecunious  painter  men,  some  of  whom 
afterward  became  famous,  and  were  numbered  among 
^Houtes  les  gloires  de  la  France^'.  Behind  the  inn,  though 
this  is  a  memory  of  years  somewhat  later,  a  garden 
with  many  tables  and  gravelled  paths,  and  great 
glass  tanks  in  which  little  fish  were  swimming.  The 
specialty  of  the  house  was  its  goujons  frits.  In  response 
to  an  order  the  white-aproned  chef  scooped  from  a  tank 
a  bowl  full  of  the  wriggling  creatures  and  transferred 
them  to  the  sizzling  pan.  Far  travelled  the  fame  of 
those  goujons  frits.  Americans  came  to  the  little  inn  on 
the  Seine  bank,  and  there,  on  Sunday  evenings,  one 
saw  familiar  faces,  faces  encountered  in  the  courtyard 
of  the  Grand  Hotel,  or  in  the  Continental,  or  at  the 


288       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

Cafe  de  la  Paix,  or  interrogating  the  mail  clerk  in  the 
banking  house  in  the  Boulevard  Haussmann.  But  the 
painter  men,  whether  they  had  become  ** gloires  de  la 
France^*  or  not,  had  all  departed. 

It  was  pleasant  travelling  in  my  old  Europe,  or  at  all 
events  it  seems  so  after  all  the  years.  First  there  was 
the  transatlantic  journey  by  the  Bretagne,  or  the  ill- 
starred  Bourgognef  or  the  Normandiey  the  steadiest 
liner  of  her  day,  or  the  Gascogne,  or  the  St.  Germainy 
or  the  old  Fran,ce,  all  of  the  C.  G.  T.,  or  by  the  Servia 
or  Aurania  of  the  Cunard,  or  the  Arizona  or  Alaska  of 
the  Guion.  Occasionally,  before  the  Great  War,  you 
heard  of  one  of  these  vessels,  usually  renamed,  and 
plying  between  Europe  and  some  South  American  port. 
Once  they  were  the  aristocratic  greyhounds  of  the  sea. 
Ashore,  the  American  dining  car  had  not  yet  been  in- 
troduced on  continental  railways.  The  midday  or  even- 
ing repast  was  contained  in  the  wicker  basket,  which, 
telegraphed  for  ahead,  was  thrust  into  the  train  com- 
partment in  the  course  of  some  three-minute  stop. 
The  name  "Dijon,"  or  "Rouen,"  or  "Orleans"  meant 
not  Feudal  history,  but  your  dinner.  Ah,  that  wicker 
basket,  with  its  contents  to  be  consumed  at  leisure  as 
the  train  wound  over  Norman  hill  or  through  vineyard 
of  Burgundy!  The  half  poulet  roti,  which  was  so  much 
better  than  roast  chicken;  the  filet  of  beef,  the  hors 
d*ceuvresy  the  forearm  of  bread;  the  green  almonds, 
for  which  one  burrowed  and  excavated;  the  half  bottle 
of  red  or  white  wine.  Degenerate  descendants  of  those 
wicker  baskets  of  yesteryear  may  still  occasionally 
be  found  in  the  world.     I  encountered  several  such  in  the 


MY  OLD  EUROPE  289 

spring  of  1917  in  the  course  of  the  thirty-hour  journey 
under  war  conditions  between  Cannes  and  Bordeaux. 
But  the  real  wicker  baskets  of  my  old  Europe  belong  as 
much  to  the  irrevocable  past  as  the  banquet  of  Cedric 
the  Saxon  in  the  halls  of  Rotherwood. 

Then  there  was  the  English  and  American  pension 
in  the  Rue  de  Clichy  of  Paris  where  the  months  ran 
into  the  years.  I  can  see  it  now;  the  long  dining  room; 
the  salon,  where  Mrs.  Lippincott  recited,  and  Maud 
Powell,  then  a  student,  played  the  violin,  and  Madame 
told  of  prices  in  the  Paris  markets  during  the  Siege; 
and  the  garden,  where  there  were  round  tin-topped 
tables  on  which  a  small  boy  could  lie  at  full  length, 
contemplating  the  shapes  assumed  by  the  clouds  as 
they  floated  lazily  across  the  sky.  In  an  adjoining 
garden  a  Frenchman  took  his  daily  fencing  lesson, 
and  the  air  rang  with  the  stamp  of  feet  and  the  clash 
of  the  buttoned  foils.  But  all  was  not  idleness.  There 
was  an  adored  sister  who  pounded  the  French  verb 
into  my  head  with  a  loving  persistence  that  makes  it 
exceedingly  strange  that  the  French  verb  in  question 
still  remains  a  baflHing  problem.  There  were  days  in  a 
private  school  in  the  same  street,  and  in  a  public  school 
in  the  near-by  Rue  Blanche.  In  the  latter  institution 
I  recall  that  I  stood  sixtieth  in  a  class  of  sixty-one,  and 
retain  a  haunting  impression  that  the  sixty-first  boy 
was  somehow  defective.  I  was  not  alone  there  in  the 
matter  of  nationality.  My  American  companion  was 
a  brother  of  Maud  Powell,  three  years  older  than  my- 
self. In  memory  he  seems  always  to  have  been  fighting 
with  a  gigantic  young  Negro  from  one  of  the  French 


290       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

West  Indies.  In  the  fiction  that  I  have  since  read 
English-speaking  boys  in  French  schools  are  always 
addressed  by  their  French  comrades  as  ^' sacre  Godems." 
With  me  memory  holds  no  such  endearing  epithet. 

Once  in  the  pension  there  was  great  excitement. 
Everyone  had  been  reading  a  novel  by  Henry  James  as 
it  appeared  in  serial  form.  The  most  exciting  part  of 
the  story — if  allusion  to  a  tale  of  Henry  James  may  be 
made  in  such  a  form — had  been  reached,  and  eager  eyes 
were  watching  for  the  appearance  of  the  forthcoming 
number  of  the  magazine  containing  it.  When  it  ar- 
rived it  contained  no  new  instalment,  for  the  story  had 
been  finished  in  the  previous  issue,  and  no  one  had 
realized  it.  I  wonder  just  which  novel  of  James  that 
was.  My  impression  once  was  that  it  was  *' Daisy 
Miller,**  but  it  could  not  well  have  been.  It  is  an  early 
memory  in  the  world  of  books;  belonging  to  the  same 
period  as  my  first  literary  memory.  In  the  salon  of 
the  pension,  in  a  bonnet  and  dress  of  the  *sixties,  and 
carrying  a  caricature  of  a  cotton  umbrella,  appeared 
the  lady  whom  we  knew  personally  as  Mrs.  Lippincott. 
From  her  own  writings  she  read  or  recited,  for  to  a 
former  generation  she  was  widely  known  under  her 
pen  name  of  "Grace  Greenwood." 

Perhaps  it  was  the  flavour  of  a  literary  atmosphere 
imparted  to  the  pension  by  the  presence  of  Grace 
Greenwood  that  was  responsible  for  a  misdemeanour  of 
which  everyone  is  at  some  time  or  other  guilty,  the 
childhood  essay  in  authorship.  Or  perhaps  that  ramb- 
ling screed  of  moving  armies  and  the  clash  of  battle  was 
born  in  the  fever  of  a  bitter  yet  justifiable  national  dis- 


MY  OLD  EUROPE  291 

like,  which  has  never  abated,  and  which  never  will  abate. 
There  were  in  the  pension  two  Germans  of  perhaps 
twenty-five  or  thirty,  who  dehghted,  behind  doors  and 
when  no  one  was  looking,  in  pinching  cruelly  little 
American  boys.  Long  after  I  saw  those  Prussian  faces 
in  nightmares,  wreathed  in  joyous  leer  at  the  spectacle 
of  pain  inflicted.  Years  later  I  was  to  see  similar  faces, 
behind  the  German  lines  in  Belgium — faces  of  officers 
of  his  Imperial  Majesty,  Wilhelm  the  Second — ^who 
lined  railway  station  platforms  to  watch  the  ghastly 
return  of  the  chomeurs,  and  to  mock  the  heart-rending 
cries  of  the  women:  *'Ohy  mon  pere!.  Oh,  mon  maril, 
Oh,  monfils!'* 

Pour  la  revanche,  with  those  pinches  still  tingling, 
I  flung  on  paper  into  the  field  allied  armies  under  the 
flags  of  the  United  States,  the  British  Empire,  and  the 
French  Republic.  Gleefully,  and  under  my  own  leader- 
ship of  course,  I  hurled  them  against  the  hordes  of  the 
Vaterland,  and  very  soon  the  goose  step  changed  to 
the  scamper  of  wild  flight.  In  that  war  the  Star- 
Spangled  Banner,  the  Tricolor,  and  the  Union  Jack 
went  right  on  to  Berlin,  and  the  Thiergarten  echoed 
with  the  delightful  strains  of  "Yankee  Doodle."  Per- 
haps it  was  a  sense  of  noblesse  oblige  that  prompted  the 
author  to  permit  the  soldiers  of  Great  Britain  and 
France  to  join  in  the  dance.  There  was  a  rhyme  of 
those  days: 

Old  Boney  was  a  Frenchman,  a  soldier  brave  and  true, 

But  Wellington  did  lick  him  on  the  field  of  Waterloo, 

But  braver  still  and  greater  far  and  tougher  than  shoe  leather, 

Was  Washington  the  man  who  could  have  licked  them  both  together. 


292       THE  PARIS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS 

which  little  American  boys  In  Europe  were  cautioned 
to  use  with  discretion  lest  it  jar  upon  sensitive  French 
and  British  ears. 

Then  came  the  day  when,  walking  by  an  elder's 
side  along  the  boulevard,  a  stout  short  old  gentleman 
was  pointed  out  to  me.  He  was  riding  on  the  imperiale 
of  a  passing  omnibus,  and  he  carried  an  umbrella. 
"That,"  said  my  mentor,  "is  Monsieur  Victor  Hugo." 
Was  it?  Had  the  fugitive  glimpse  been  the  glimpse 
of  another  I  should  be  to-day  the  first  to  be  frankly 
sceptical.  But  at  the  time,  even  though  the  name 
meant  little,  I  was  perfectly  convinced  that  the  short 
stout  man  of  the  omnibus  was  Victor  Hugo.  And 
looking  backward  It  seems  somehow  that  it  would  be 
treason  and  ingratitude  to  harbour  even  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt. 

A  few  years  later.  The  beach  of  the  Norman  town 
of  Etretat,  which  stretches  along  the  sea  between  the 
Falaise  d'Aval  and  the  Falaise  d'Amont.  At  the  morn- 
ing bathing  hour  the  eyes  of  all  those  idling  on  the 
sands,  were  they  French,  English,  or  American,  turned 
in  the  direction  of  a  strongly  built  man  with  an  air  of 
aristocratic  aloofness.  It  was  Guy  de  Maupassant. 
Later  the  memory  was  to  mean  much  to  me.  He  was 
then  in  the  full  flood  of  his  powers  and  his  fame.  But 
he  had  just  written  "Le  Horla,"  which  first  suggested 
the  gathering  shadows  of  the  madness  that  was  so  soon 
to  blight  and  extinguish  him. 

To  what  babbling  lengths  those  memories  might  be 
carried!  Ah,  my  old  Europe!  I  shall  never  see  you 
again  as  I  saw  you  in  the  morning  of  life.     But  in  mus- 


MY  OLD  EUROPE  293 

ing  on  you,  and  in  repeating  over  and  over  the  name, 
it  seems  as  if  "the  air  is  full  of  ballad  notes,  borne 
out  of  long  ago." 


THE  END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Aicard,  J.,  271 
Anstey,  F.,  120 
Atkinson,  E.,  271 
Augier,  E.,  108 

B 

Balzac,  H.  de,  39,  60  seq.,  77,  80,  86, 

108,  109,  114,  146,  232  seq.,  286 
Barbusse,  H.,  270 
Bates,  E.  S.,  277 
Benjamin,  R.,  270 
Bennett,  A.,  125,  140  seq. 
Beranger,  39,  218 
Blanche,  Dr.,  175 
Boisgobey,  F.  de,  89 
Bourget,  P.,  270 
Brisson,  A.,  15 
Bronte,  C,  12 
Brookfield,  W.  H.,  34 
Brookfield,  Mrs.,  34,  164 
Browning,  R.,  44 
Bullen,  F.,  15 

Bulwer-Lytton,  E.,  lo,  72,  124 
Burnett,  F.  H.,  5 
Byron,  Lord,  12 


Connolly,  J.  B.,  6 
Conrad,  J.,  5,  255 
Constant,  B.,  123 
Cooper,  J.  F.,  114,  179 
Couperus,  L.,  10 
Crawford,  F.  M.,  5,  6,  185 

D 

Daudet,  A.,  92  seq.,  146,  150,  164, 

205,  206  seq.,  240,  241  seq.,  255, 

267 
Davis,  R.  H,,  5, 9,  76,  i86,  256,  271 
Dawson,  A.  J.,  9 
Delaroche,  P.,  63 
Dickens,  C.,  5,  9,  40  seq.,  103,  125, 

164,  2SS 
Disraeli,  B.,  87,  124 
Doyle,  A.  C,  8,  9,  89,  125,  131  seq., 

212,  268 
Drouet,  J.,  21 
Dumas,  A.,  10,  12,  20,  23,  35, 43,  45 

seq.,  80,  108,  146,  252  seq. 
Dumzsfils,  46,  108 
Du  Maurier,  G.,  28,  30,  108,  115 

seq.,  200  seq.,  206,  281 
Dunsany,  Lord,  271 


Canfield,  D.,  271 
Carlyle,  T.,  40 
Carryll,  G.  W.,  191 
Cezanne,  P.,  147 
Chambers,  R.  W.,  187 
Champfleury,  in 
Chateaubriand,  43 
Cherbuliez,  V.,  203 
Claretie,  J.,  269 
Collins,  W.,  44,  80 


Erckmann-Chatrian,  268 
Esparbes,  G.  d',  269 


Fielding,  H.,  8 

Flaubert,  G.,  89, 146, 167,  220  seq. 
Forster,  J.,  40,  43 
France,  A.,  198 

Fran9ois  (Maupassant's  valet),  43 
seq.,  212 


297 


298  INDEX 


Franklin,  M.,  56 
Fribourg,  A.,  270 
Froude,  40 
Funck-Bientano,  62 


Gaboriau,  E.,  89  seq.,  200 

Gambetta,  66,  105 

Gautier,  T.,  43,  73,  87,  88, 108,  158, 

229 
Gavarni,  73,  98 
Gerome,  106,  123 
Girardin,  E.  de,  44 
Glasgow,  E.,  loi 
Goncourt,  E.  de,  150 
Goncourt,  J.  de,  150 
Gras,  F.,  264 
Greenwood,  G.,  286 
Guizot,  35 

Gunter,  A.  C,  181  seq.,  264 
Gyp,  213 


H 


Hallam,  H.,  34 
Halleck,  W.  H.,  264 
Hamilton,  C,  126,  129 
Harris,  F.,  143 
Hayward,  A.,  32 
Henry,  0.,  4,  193 
Heyse,  P.,  264 
Howard,  B.  W.,  238 
Howells,  W.  D.,  4,  186 
Hughes,  R.,  186 

Hugo,  v.,  10,  12,  13  seq.,  35,  39,  43, 
57,  77,  108,  129,  146,  239,  292 


Ibanez,  V.  B.,  270 
Irvine,  St.  J.,  271 
Irving,  W.,  177 


Tanin,  J.,  iii,  158 
Johnson,  0.,  186,  : 


190 

K 

Karr,  A.,  43,  158,  213 

Keats,  29 

King,  B.,  186 

Kipling,  R.,  3,  6,  7,  29,  125  seq. 

Kock,  P.  de,  86  seq. 


Lafond,  G.,  270 

Lamartine,  43 

Leroux,  G.,  89 

Level,  M.,  271 

Locke,  W.  J.,  125,  144  seq.,  202,  263 

271 
Loti,  P.,  239 

M 

McCutcheon,  G.  B.,  4 

McFee,  W.,  6 

Maartens,  M.,  10,  264 

Maeterlinck,  M.,  10 

Maquet,  A.,  47,  262 

Marguerite,  P.,  269 

Marguerite,  V.,  269 

Martin,  B.  E.,  17,  26,  52 

Matthews,  B.,  85 

Maupassant,  G.  de,  141,   150,   163 

seq.,  196,  199,  205,  212,  213  seq., 

219,  264^292 
Maynial,  E.,  172 
Mendes,  C,  169 
Meredith,  G.,  125 
Meredith,  O.,  125 
Merrick,  L.,  125,  135  seq.,  202,  226, 

273 
Mery,  35,  158 
Mitchell,  S.  W.,  186 
Moffett,  C,  191 
Murger,  H.,  108  seq. 
Musset,  A.  de,  39,  108,  123 


Jacobs,  W.  W.,  6  N 

James,  H.,  117,  183,  186,  213,  215, 

290  Nadaud,  G.,  228 

James,  G.  P.  R.,  124  Nodier,  C,  123 


INDEX 


299 


Norris,  C,  192 
Norris,  F.,  191,  192 
Noyes,  A.,  5 


Sue,E.,43,77seq.,  114 
Swinburne,  A.  C,  168 


Ouida  (Louise  de  la  Ramee),  10,  217 


Payne,  J.  H.,  177 
PhiUpotts,  E.,  8 
Foe,  E.  A.,  89,  152,  179  seq. 
Prevost,  Abbe,  229 


Tarkington,  N,  B.,  8,  45,  188  seq., 

202,  218 
Terrail,  P.  de.,  89 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  5,  28  seq.,  47, 

48,  72,  125,  133,  l64>  204,  210,  211 
TroUope,  A.,  9,  37 
Turgenieff,  150 


Rabelais,  200 
Reade,  C.,  10 
Robertson,  M.,  6 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  72 


Sainte-Beuve,  108 

Sand,  G.,  30,  44,  64,  80,  238 

Sandeau,  J.,  64 

Sardou,  V.,  16 

SchefFer,  A.,  44 

Scott,  W.,  36,  124, 185,  234,  286 

Scribe,  E.,  35, 44 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  141 

Smith,  F.  B.,  191 

Sonnichsen,  A.,  6 

Stendhal,  236,  268 

Sterne,  L.,  124 

Stevenson,  B.  E.,  5,  264 

Stevenson,  R.  A.  M.,  126,  130 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  125,  126  seq.,  204, 

270,  273 
Stevenson,  Mrs.,  131 
Street,  J.,  29, 188 


Vance,  L.  J.,  5,  190,  272 
Van  Dam,  A.,  79 
Van  Saanan,  M.  L.,  239 
Verlaine,  P.,  107 
Vigny,  A.  de,  20 
Villemessant,  H.,  252 
Villon,  P.,  107,  no,  129 
Vizetelly,  E.,  147 
Voltaire,  71 

W 

Walpole,  H.,  271 
Ward,  Mrs.  H.,  271 
Wells,  H.  G.,  271 
Werdet,  65 

Wharton,  E.,  186,  271 
Whistler,  J.  M.,  116 
Williams6n,  A.  M.,  5,  264 
Williamson,  C.  N.,  5,  264 
Wilson,  H.  L.,  187 


Zola,  E.,  95,  146  seq.,  169,  174,  263, 
269 


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